THEIR 

SILVER    WEDDING 
JOURNEY 


21 


BY 


W.  D.  HOWELLS 


°"A 


°F 


, 

LANDLORD  AT  LION'S  HEAD"  ETC 


£jB»Z5> 

OF  THF 

UNIVERSITY 

or 


NEW   YORK   AND    LONDON 

HARPER  &   BROTHERS   PUBLISHERS 

1902 


I'     '-    "- 


Copyright,  1899,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

All  rights  reserved. 


THEIR  SILVER  WEDDING  JOURNEY 


154766 


THEIE  SILVER  WEDDING  JOURNEY. 


"  You  need  the  rest,"  said  the  Business  End ; 
"  and  your  wife  wants  you  to  go,  as  well  as  your 
doctor.  Besides,  it's  your  Sabbatical  year,  and  you 
could  send  back  a  lot  of  stuff  for  the  magazine." 

"  Is  that  your  notion  of  a  Sabbatical  year  ? "  asked 
the  editor. 

"  No ;  I  throw  that  out  as  a  bait  to  your  conscience. 
You  needn't  write  a  line  while  you're  gone.  I  wish 
you  wouldn't  for  your  own  sake;  although  every  num 
ber  that  hasn't  got  you  in  it  is  a  back  number  for 
me." 

"  That's  very  nice  of  you,  Fulkerson,"  said  the  edi 
tor.  "  I  suppose  you  realize  that  it's  nine  years  since 
we  took  Every  Other  Week  from  Dryfoos  ?  " 

"Well,  that  makes  it  all  the  more  Sabbatical," 
said  Fulkerson.  "  The  two  extra  years  that  you've 
put  in  here,  over  and  above  the  old  style  Sabbatical 
A  1 


2  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

seven,  are  just  so  much  more  to  your  credit.  It  was 
your  right  to  go,  two  years  ago,  and  now  it's  your 
duty.  Couldn't  you  look  at  it  in  that  light  ?  " 

"  I  dare  say  Mrs.  March  could,"  the  editor  assented. 
"  I  don't  believe  she  could  be  brought  to  regard  it  as 
a  pleasure  on  any  other  terms." 

"  Of  course  not,"  said  Fulkerson.  "  If  you  won't 
take  a  year,  take  three  months,  and  call  it  a  Sabbati 
cal  summer;  but  go,  anyway.  You  can  make  up  half 
a  dozen  numbers  ahead,  and  Tom,  here,  knows  your 
ways  so  well  that  you  needn't  think  about  Every  Other 
Week  from  the  time  you  start  till  the  time  you  try  to 
bribe  the  customs  inspector  when  you  get  back.  I 
can  take  a  hack  at  the  editing  myself,  if  Tom's  inspir 
ation  gives  out,  and  put  a  little  of  my  advertising  fire 
into  the  thing."  He  laid  his  hand  on  the  shoulder  of 
the  young  fellow  who  stood  smiling  by,  and  pushed 
and  shook  him  in  the  liking  there  was  between  them. 
u  Now  you  go,  March  !  Mrs.  Fulkerson  feels  just  as 
I  do  about  it;  we  had  our  outing  last  year,  and  we 
want  Mrs.  March  and  you  to  have  yours.  You  let 
me  go  down  and  engage  your  passage,  and — " 

"  No,  no  !  "  the  editor  rebelled.  "  I'll  think  about 
it ; "  but  as  he  turned  to  the  work  he  was  so  fond  of 
and  so  weary  of,  he  tried  not  to  think  of  the  question 
again,  till  he  closed  his  desk  in  the  afternoon,  and 
started  to  walk  home ;  the  doctor  had  said  he  ought 
to  walk,  and  he  did  so,  though  he  longed  to  ride,  and 
looked  wistfully  at  the  passing  cars. 

He  knew  he  was  in  a  rut,  as  his  wife  often  said ; 
but  if  it  was  a  rut,  it  was  a  support  too ;  it  kept  him 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  3 

from  wobbling.  She  always  talked  as  if  the  flowery 
fields  of  youth  lay  on  either  side  of  the  dusty  road  he 
had  been  going  so  long,  and  he  had  but  to  step  aside 
from  it,  to  be  among  the  butterflies  and  buttercups 
again ;  he  sometimes  indulged  this  illusion,  himself, 
in  a  certain  ironical  spirit  which  caressed  while  it 
mocked  the  notion.  They  had  a  tacit  agreement  that 
their  youth,  if  they  were  ever  to  find  it  again,  was 
to  be  looked  for  in  Europe,  where  they  met  when  they 
were  young,  and  they  had  never  been  quite  without 
the  hope  of  going  back  there,  some  day,  for  a  long 
sojourn.  They  had  not  seen  the  time  when  they  could 
do  so ;  they  were  dreamers,  but,  as  they  recognized, 
even  dreaming  is  not  free  from  care  ;  and  in  his  dream 
March  had  been  obliged  to  work  pretty  steadily,  if 
not  too  intensely.  He  had  been  forced  to  forego  the 
distinctly  literary  ambition  with  which  he  had  started 
in  life  because  he  had  their  common  living  to  make, 
and  he  could  not  make  it  by  writing  graceful  verse,  or 
even  graceful  prose.  He  had  been  many  years  in  a 
sufficiently  distasteful  business,  and  he  had  lost  any 
thought  of  leaving  it  when  it  left  him,  perhaps  be 
cause  his  hold  on  it  had  always  been  rather  lax,  and 
he  had  not  been  able  to  conceal  that  he  disliked  it. 
At  any  rate,  he  was  supplanted  in  his  insurance 
agency  at  Boston  by  a  subordinate  in  his  office,  and 
though  he  was  at  the  same  time  offered  a  place  of 
nominal  credit  in  the  employ  of  the  company,  he  was 
able  to  decline  it  in  grace  of  a  chance  which  united 
the  charm  of  congenial  work  with  the  solid  advantage 
of  a  better  salary  than  he  had  been  getting  for  work 


4  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

he  hated.  It  was  an  incredible  chance,  but  it  was 
rendered  appreciably  real  by  the  necessity  it  involved 
that  they  should  leave  Boston,  where  they  had  lived 
all  their  married  life,  where  Mrs.  March  as  well  as 
their  children  was  born,  and  where  all  their  tender 
and  familiar  ties  were,  and  come  to  New  York,  where 
the  literary  enterprise  which  formed  his  chance  was 
to  be  founded. 

It  was  then  a  magazine  of  a  new  sort,  which  his 
business  partner  had  imagined  in  such  leisure  as  the 
management  of  a  newspaper  syndicate  afforded  him, 
and  had  always  thought  of  getting  March  to  edit. 
The  magazine  which  is  also  a  book  has  since  been 
realized  elsewhere  on  more  or  less  prosperous  terms, 
but  not  for  any  long  period,  and  Every  Other  Week 
was  apparently  the  only  periodical  of  the  kind  condi 
tioned  for  survival.  It  was  at  first  backed  by  unlim 
ited  capital,  and  it  had  the  instant  favor  of  a  popular 
mood,  which  has  since  changed,  but  which  did  not 
change  so  soon  that  the  magazine  had  not  time  to 
establish  itself  in  a  wide  acceptance.  It  was  now  no 
longer  a  novelty,  it  was  no  longer  in  the  maiden  blush 
of  its  first  success,  bnt  it  had  entered  upon  its  second 
youth  with  the  reasonable  hope  of  many  years  of 
prosperity  before  it.  In  fact  it  was  a  very  comforta 
ble  living  for  all  concerned,  and  the  Marches  had  the 
conditions,  almost  dismayingly  perfect,  in  which  they 
had  often  promised  themselves  to  go  and  be  young 
again  in  Europe,  when  they  rebelled  at  finding  them 
selves  elderly  in  America.  Their  daughter  was  mar 
ried,  and  so  very  much  to  her  mother's  mind  that  she 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  5 

did  not  worry  about  her,  even  though  she  lived  so  far 
away  as  Chicago,  still  a  wild  frontier  town  to  her 
Boston  imagination ;  and  their  son,  as  soon  as  he  left 
college,  had  taken  hold  on  Every  Other  W  eek,  under 
his  father's  instruction,  with  a  zeal  and  intelligence 
which  won  him  Fulkerson's  praise  as  a  chip  of  the  old 
block.  These  two  liked  each  other,  and  worked  into 
each  other's  hands  as  cordially  and  aptly  as  Fulkerson 
and  March  had  ever  done.  It  amused  the  father  to 
see  his  son  offering  Fulkerson  the  same  deference 
which  the  Business  End  paid  to  seniority  in  March 
himself;  but  in  fact,  Fulkerson's  forehead  was  getting, 
as  he  said,  more  intellectual  every  day ;  and  the  years 
were  pushing  them  all  along  together. 

Still,  March  had  kept  on  in  the  old  rut,  and  one  day 
he  fell  down  in  it.  He  had  a  long  sickness,  and  when 
he  was  well  of  it,  he  was  so  slow  in  getting  his  grip 
of  work  again  that  he  was  sometimes  deeply  discour 
aged.  His  wife  shared  his  depression,  whether  he 
showed  or  whether  he  hid  it,  and  when  the  doctor 
advised  his  going  abroad,  she  abetted  the  doctor  with 
all  the  strength  of  a  woman's  hygienic  intuitions. 
March  himself  willingly  consented,  at  first;  but  as 
soon  as  he  got  strength  for  his  work,  he  began  to 
temporize  and  to  demur.  He  said  that  he  believed 
it  would  do  him  just  as  much  good  to  go  to  Saratoga, 
where  they  always  had  such  a  good  time,  as  to  go  to 
Carlsbad ;  and  Mrs.  March  had  been  obliged  several 
times  to  leave  him  to  his  own  undoing ;  she  always 
took  him  more  vigorously  in  hand  afterwards. 


n. 

WHEN  lie  got  home  from  the  Every  Other  Week 
office,  the  afternoon  of  that  talk  with  the  Business 
End,  he  wanted  to  laugh  with  his  wife  at  Fulkerson's 
notion  of  a  Sabbatical  year.  She  did  not  think  it  was 
so  very  droll ;  she  even  urged  it  seriously  against  him, 
as  if  she  had  now  the  authority  of  Holy  Writ  for 
forcing  him  abroad ;  she  found  no  relish  of  absurdity 
in  the  idea  that  it  was  his  duty  to  take  this  rest  which 
had  been  his  right  before. 

He  abandoned  himself  to  a  fancy  which  had  been 
working  to  the  surface  of  his  thought.  "  We  could 
call  it  our  Silver  Wedding  Journey,  and  go  round  to 
all  the  old  places,  and  see  them  in  the  reflected  light 
of  the  past." 

"  Oh,  we  could  !  "  she  responded,  passionately ;  and 
he  had  now  the  delicate  responsibility  of  persuading 
her  that  he  was  joking. 

He  could  think  of  nothing  better  than  a  return  to 
Fulkerson's  absurdity.  "  It  would  be  our  Silver  Wed 
ding  Journey  just  as  it  would  be  my  Sabbatical  year 
— a  good  deal  after  date.  But  I  suppose  that  would 
make  it  all  the  more  silvery." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  7 

She  faltered  in  her  elation.  "  Didn't  you  say  a 
Sabbatical  year  yourself  ? ''  she  demanded. 

"  Fulkerson  said  it ;  but  it  was  a  figurative  expres 
sion." 

"  And  I  suppose  the  Silver  Wedding  Journey  was 
a  figurative  expression  too  ! " 

"  It  was  a  notion  that  tempted  me  ;  I  thought  you 
would  enjoy  it.  Don't  you  suppose  I  should  be  glad 
too,  if  we  could  go  over,  and  find  ourselves  just  as  we 
were  when  we  first  met  there  ? " 

"  No ;  I  don't  believe  now  that  you  care  anything 
about  it." 

"  Well,  it  couldn't  be  done,  anyway  ;  so  that  doesn't 
matter." 

"  It  could  be  done,  if  you  were  a  mind  to  think  so. 
And  it  would  be  the  greatest  inspiration  to  you.  You 
are  always  longing  for  some  chance  to  do  original 
work,  to  get  away  from  your  editing,  but  you've  let 
the  time  slip  by  without  really  trying  to  do  anything ; 
I  don't  call  those  little  studies  of  yours  in  the  maga 
zine  anything ;  and  now  you  won't  take  the  chance 
that's  almost  forcing  itself  upon  you.  You  could 
write  an  original  book  of  the  nicest  kind ;  mix  up 
travel  and  fiction ;  get  some  love  in." 

"  Oh,  that's  the  stalest  kind  of  thing  !  " 

"  Well,  but  you  could  see  it  from  a  perfectly  new 
point  of  view.  You  could  look  at  it  as  a  sort  of  dis 
passionate  witness,  and  treat  it  humorously — of  course 
it  is  ridiculous — and  do  something  entirely  fresh." 

"  It  wouldn't  work.  It  would  be  carrying  water  on 
both  shoulders.  The  fiction  would  kill  the  travel,  the 


8  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

travel  would  kill  the  fiction ;  the  love  and  the  humor 
wouldn't  mingle  any  more  than  oil  and  vinegar." 

"  Well,  and  what  is  better  than  a  salad  ? " 

"  But  this  would  be  all  salad-dressing,  and  nothing 
to  put  it  on."  She  was  silent,  and  he  yielded  to  an 
other  fancy.  "  We  might  imagine  coming  upon  our 
former  selves  over  there,  and  travelling  round  with 
them — a  wedding  journey  en  partie  carried 

"  Something  like  that.  I  call  it  a  very  poetical 
idea,"  she  said  with  a  sort  of  provisionality,  as  if  dis 
trusting  another  ambush. 

"  It  isn't  so  bad,"  he  admitted.  "  How  young  we 
were,  in  those  days  !  " 

"  Too  young  to  know  what  a  good  time  we  were 
having,"  she  said,  relaxing  her  doubt  for  the  retro 
spect.  "  I  don't  feel  as  if  I  really  saw  Europe,  then ; 
I  was  too  inexperienced,  too  ignorant,  too  simple.  I 
would  like  to  go,  just  to  make  sure  that  I  had  been." 
He  was  smiling  again  in  the  way  he  had  when  any 
thing  occurred  to  him  that  amused  him,  and  she 
demanded,  "What  is  it?" 

"  Nothing.  I  was  wishing  we  could  go  in  the  con 
sciousness  of  people  who  actually  hadn't  been  before 

carry  them  all  through  Europe,  and  let  them  see  it 

in  the  old,  simple-hearted  American  way."" 

She  shook  her  head.  "  You  couldn't!  They've 
all  been  !  " 

"  All  but  about  sixty  or  seventy  millions,"  said 
March. 

"  Well,  those  are  just  the  millions  you  don't  know, 
and  couldn't  imagine." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  9 

"  I'm  not  so  sure  of  that." 

"And  even  if  you  could  imagine  them,  you  couldn't 
make  them  interesting.  All  the  interesting  ones  have 
been,  anyway." 

"  Some  of  the  uninteresting  ones  too.  I  used  to 
meet  some  of  that  sort  over  there.  I  believe  I  would 
rather  chance  it  for  my  pleasure  with  those  that  hadn't 
been." 

"  Then  why  not  do  it  ?  I  know  you  could  get 
something  out  of  it." 

"  It  might  be  a  good  thing,"  he  mused,  "  to  take  a 
couple  who  had  passed  their  whole  life  here  in  New 
York,  too  poor  and  too  busy  ever  to  go,  and  had  a 
perfect  famine  for  Europe  all  the  time.  I  could  have 
them  spend  their  Sunday  afternoons  going  aboard  the 
different  boats,  and  looking  up  their  accommodations. 
I  could  have  them  sail,  in  imagination,  and  discover 
an  imaginary  Europe,  and  give  their  grotesque  mis 
conceptions  of  it  from  travels  and  novels  against  a 
background  of  purely  American  experience.  We 
needn't  go  abroad  to  manage  that.  I  think  it  would 
be  rather  nice." 

"  I  don't  think  it  would  be  nice  in  the  least,"  said 
Mrs.  March,  "  and  if  you  don't  want  to  talk  seriously, 
I  would  rather  not  talk  at  all." 

"  Well,  then,  let's  talk  about  our  Silver  Wedding 
Journey." 

"  I  see.  You  merely  want  to  tease,  and  I  am  not 
in  the  humor  for  it." 

She  said  this  in  a  great  many  different  ways,  and 
then  she  was  really  silent.  He  perceived  that  she 


10  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

was  hurt;  and  he  tried  to  win  her  back  to  good- 
humor.  He  asked  her  if  she  would  not  like  to  go 
over  to  Hoboken  and  look  at  one  of  the  Hanseatic 
League  steamers,  some  day ;  and  she  refused.  AVhen 
he  sent  the  next  day  and  got  a  permit  to  see  the  boat; 
she  consented  to  go. 


III. 

HE  was  one  of  those  men  who  live  from  the  inside 
outward  ;  he  often  took  a  hint  for  his  actions  from  his 
fancies;  and  now  because  he  had  fancied  some  people 
going  to  look  at  steamers  on  Sundays,  he  chose  the 
next  Sunday  himself  for  their  visit  to  the  Hanseatic 
boat  at  Hoboken.  To  be  sure  it  was  a  leisure  day 
with  him,  but  he  might  have  taken  the  afternoon  of 
any  other  day,  for  that  matter,  and  it  was  really  that 
invisible  thread  of  association  which  drew  him. 

The  Colmannia  had  been  in  long  enough  to  have 
made  her  toilet  for  the  outward  voyage,  and  was  look 
ing  her  best.  She  was  tipped  and  edged  with  shining 
brass,  without  and  within,  and  was  red-carpeted  and 
white-painted  as  only  a  ship  knows  how  to  be.  A 
little  uniformed  steward  ran  before  the  visitors,  and 
showed  them  through  the  dim  white  corridors  into 
typical  state-rooms  on  the  different  decks ;  and  then 
let  them  verify  their  first  impression  of  the  grandeur 
of  the  dining-saloon,  and  the  luxury  of  the  ladies' 
parlor  and  music-room.  March  made  his  wife  observe 
that  the  tables  and  sofas  and  easy-chairs,  which 
seemed  so  carelessly  scattered  about,  were  all  suggest- 


12  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

ively  screwed  fast  to  the  floor  against  rough  weather; 
and  he  amused  himself  with  the  heavy  German  browns 
and  greens  and  coppers  in  the  decorations,  which  he 
said  must  have  been  studied  in  color  from  sausage, 
beer,  and  spinach,  to  the  effect  of  those  large  march 
panes  in  the  roof.  She  laughed  with  him  at  the 
tastelessness  of  the  race  which  they  were  destined  to 
marvel  at  more  and  more ;  but  she  made  him  own  that 
the  stewardesses  whom  they  saw  were  charmingly  like 
serving-maids  in  the  Fliegende  Blatter;  when  they 
went  ashore  she  challenged  his  silence  for  some  assent 
to  her  own  conclusion  that  the  Colmannia  was  per 
fect. 

"  She  has  only  one  fault,"  he  assented.  "  She's  a 
ship." 

"  Yes,"  said  his  wife,  "  and  I  shall  want  to  look  at 
the  Norumbia  before  I  decide." 

Then  he  saw  that  it  was  only  a  question  which 
steamer  they  should  take,  and  not  whether  they  should 
take  any.  He  explained,  at  first  gently  and  after 
wards  savagely,  that  their  visit  to  the  Colmannia  was 
quite  enough  for  him,  and  that  the  vessel  was  not 
built  that  he  would  be  willing  to  cross  the  Atlantic  in. 

When  a  man  has  gone  so  far  as  that  he  has  com 
mitted  himself  to  the  opposite  course  in  almost  so 
many  words ;  and  March  was  neither  surprised  nor 
abashed  when  he  discovered  himself,  before  they 
reached  home,  offering  his  wife  many  reasons  why 
they  should  go  to  Europe.  She  answered  to  all,  No, 
he  had  made  her  realize  the  horror  of  it  so  much  that 
she  was  glad  to  give  it  up.  She  gave  it  up,  with  the 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  13 

best  feeling ;  all  that  she  would  ask  of  him  was  that 
he  should  never  mention  Europe  to  her  again.  She 
could  imagine  how  much  he  disliked  to  go,  if  such  a 
ship  a.s  the  Colmannia  did  not  make  him  want  to  go. 
At  the  bottom  of  his  heart  he  knew  that  he  had 
riot  used  her  very  well.  He  had  kindled  her  fancy 
with  those  notions  of  a  Sabbatical  year  and  a  Silver 
Wedding  Journey,  and  when  she  was  willing  to  re 
nounce  both  he  had  persisted  in  taking  her  to  see  the 
ship,  only  to  tell  her  afterwards  that  he  would  not  go 
abroad  on  any  account.  It  was  by  a  psychological 
juggle  which  some  men  will  understand  that  he  allow 
ed  himself  the  next  day  to  get  the  sailings  of  the 
Norumbia  from  the  steamship  office ;  he  also  got  a 
plan  of  the  ship  showing  the  most  available  state 
rooms,  so  that  they  might  be  able  to  choose  between 
her  and  the  Colmannia  from  all  the  facts. 


IV. 

FROM  this  time  their  decision  to  go  was  none  the 
less  explicit  because  so  perfectly  tacit. 

They  began  to  amass  maps  and  guides.  She  got  a 
Baedeker  for  Austria  and  he  got  a  Bradshaw  for  the 
continent,  which  was  never  of  the  least  use  there,  but 
was  for  the  present  a  mine  of  unavailable  information. 
He  got  a  phrase-book,  too,  and  tried  to  rub  up  his* 
German.  He  used  to  read  German,  when  he  was  a 
boy,  with  a  young  enthusiasm  for  its  romantic  poetry, 
and  now,  for  the  sake  of  Schiller  and  Uhland  and 
Heine,  he  held  imaginary  conversations  with  a  barber, 
a  bootmaker,  and  a  banker,  and  tried  to  taste  the  joy 
which  he  had  not  known  in  the  language  of  those 
poets  for  a  whole  generation.  He  perceived,  of  course, 
that  unless  the  barber,  the  bootmaker,  and  the  banker 
answered  him  in  terms  which  the  author  of  the 
phrase-book  directed  them  to  use,  he  should  not  get 
on  with  them  beyond  his  first  question ;  but  he  did 
not  allow  this  to  spoil  his  pleasure  in  it.  In  fact,  it 
was  with  a  tender  emotion  that  he  realized  how  little 
the  world,  which  had  changed  in  everything  else  so 
greatly,  had  changed  in  its  ideal  of  a  phrase-book. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  15 

Mrs.  March  postponed  the  study  of  her  Baedeker 
to  the  time  and  place  for  it ;  and  addressed  herself  to 
the  immediate  business  of  ascertaining  the  respective 
merits  of  the  Colmannia  and  Norumbia.  She  carried 
on  her  researches  solely  among  persons  of  her  own 
sex ;  its  experiences  were  alone  of  that  positive  char 
acter  which  brings  conviction,  and  she  valued  them 
equally  at  first  or  second  hand.  She  heard  of  ladies 
vfiio  would  not  cross  in  any  boat  but  the  Colmannia, 
and  who  waited  for  months  to  get  a  room  on  her ;  she 
talked  with  ladies  who  said  that  nothing  would  induce 
them  to  cross  in  her.  There  were  ladies  who  said  she 
had  twice  the  motion  that  the  Norumbia  had,  and  the 
vibration  from  her  twin  screws  was  frightful ;  it  always 
was,  on  those  twin-screw  boats,  and  it  did  not  affect 
their  testimony  with  Mrs.  March  that  the  Norumbia 
was  a  twin-screw  boat  too.  It  was  repeated  to  her  in 
the  third  or  fourth  degree  of  hear-say  that  the  disci 
pline  on  the  Colmannia  was  as  perfect  as  that  on  the 
Cunarders ;  ladies  whose  friends  had  tried  every  line 
assured  her  that  the  table  of  the  Norumbia  was  al 
most  as  good  as  the  table  of  the  French  boats.  To 
the  best  of  the  belief  of  lady  witnesses  still  living 
who  had  friends  on  board,  the  Colmannia  had  once 
got  aground,  and  the  Norumbia  had  once  had  her 
bridge  carried  off  by  a  tidal  wave ;  or  it  might  be  the 
Colmannia;  they  promised  to  ask  and  let  her  know. 
Their  lightest  word  availed  with  her  against  the  most 
solemn  assurances  of  their  husbands,  fathers,  or  broth 
ers,  who  might  be  all  very  well  on  land,  but  in  naviga 
tion  were  not  to  be  trusted ;  they  would  say  anything 


16  THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

from  a  reckless  and  culpable  optimism.  She  obliged 
March  all  the  same  to  ask  among  them,  but  she  rec 
ognized  their  guilty  insincerity  when  he  came  home 
saying  that  one  man  had  told  him  you  could  have 
played  croquet  on  the  deck  of  the  Colmannia  the 
whole  way  over  when  he  crossed,  and  another  that  he 
never  saw  the  racks  on  in  three  passages  he  had  made 
in  the  Norumbia. 

The  weight  of  evidence  was,  he  thought,  in  favpr 
of  the  Norumbia,  but  when  they  went  another  Sunday 
to  Hoboken,  and  saw  the  ship,  Mrs.  March  liked  her 
so  much  less  than  the  Colmannia  that  she  could  hardly 
wait  for  Monday  to  come ;  she  felt  sure  all  the  good 
rooms  on  the  Colmannia  would  be  gone  before  they 
could  engage  one. 

From  a  consensus  of  the  nerves  of  all  the  ladies  left 
in  town  so  late  in  the  season,  she  knew  that  the  only 
place  on  any  steamer  where  your  room  ought  to  be 
was  probably  just  where  they  could  not  get  it.  If 
you  went  too  high,  you  felt  the  rolling  terribly,  and 
people  tramping  up  and  down  on  the  promenade  un 
der  your  window  kept  you  awake  the  whole  night ;  if 
you  went  too  low,  you  felt  the  engine  thump,  thump, 
thump  in  your  head  the  whole  way  over.  If  you  went 
too  far  forward,  you  got  the  pitching ;  if  you  went  aft, 
on  the'kitchen  side,  you  got  the  smell  of  the  cooking. 
The  only  place,  really,  was  just  back  of  the  dining- 
saloon  on  the  south  side  of  the  ship ;  it  was  smooth 
there,  and  it  was  quiet,  and  you  had  the  sun  in  your 
window  all  the  way  over.  He  asked  her  if  he  must 
take  their  room  there  or  nowhere,  and  she  answered 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  17 

that  he  must  do  his  best,  but  that  she  would  not  be 
satisfied  with  any  other  place. 

In  his  despair  he  went  down  to  the  steamer  office, 
and  took  a  room  which  one  of  the  clerks  said  was  the 
best.  When  he  got  home,  it  appeared  from  reference 
to  the  ship's  plan  that  it  was  the  very  room  his  wife 
had  wanted  from  the  beginning,  and  she  praised  him 
as  if  he  had  used  a  wisdom  beyond  his  sex  in  getting 
it. 

He  was  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  unmerited  honor 
when  a  belated  lady  came  with  her  husband  for  an 
evening  call,  before  going  into  the  country.  At  sight 
of  the  plans  of  steamers  on  the  Marches'  table,  she 
expressed  the  greatest  wonder  and  delight  that  they 
were  going  to  Europe.  They  had  supposed  everybody 
knew  it,  by  this  time,  but  she  said  she  had  not  heard 
a  word  of  it ;  and  she  went  on  with  some  felicitations 
which  March  found  rather  unduly  filial.  In  getting 
a  little  past  the  prime  of  life  he  did  not  like  to  be 
used  with  too  great  consideration  of  his  years,  and  he 
did  not  think  that  he  and  his  wife  were  so  old  that 
they  need  be  treated  as  if  they  were  going  on  a  golden 
wedding  journey,  and  heaped  with  all  sorts  of  imper 
tinent  prophecies  of  their  enjoying  it  so  much  and 
being  so  much  the  better  for  the  little  outing  !  Under 
his  breath,  he  confounded  this  lady  for  her 'impu 
dence  ;  but  he  schooled  himself  to  let  her  rejoice  at 
their  going  on  a  Hanseatic  boat,  because  the  Germans 
were  always  so  careful  of  you.  She  made  her  hus 
band  agree  with  her,  and  it  came  out  that  he  had 
crossed  several  times  on  both  the  Colmannia  and  the 


18  THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

Norumbia.  He  volunteered  to  say  that  the  Colman- 
nia  was  a  capital  sea-boat ;  she  did  not  have  her  nose 
under  water  all  the  time ;  she  was  steady  as  a  rock ; 
and  the  captain  and  the  kitchen  were  simply  out  of 
sight ;  some  people  did  call  her  unlucky. 

"  Unlucky  ?  "  Mrs.  March  echoed,  faintly.  "  Why 
do  they  call  her  unlucky  ? " 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know.  People  will  say  anything  about 
any  boat.  You  know  she  broke  her  shaft,  once,  and 
once  she  got  caught  in  the  ice." 

Mrs.  March  joined  him  in  deriding  the  superstition 
of  people,  and  she  parted  gayly  with  this  over-good 
young  couple.  As  soon  as  they  were  gone,  March 
knew  that  she  would  say :  "  You  must  change  that 
ticket,  my  dear.  We  will  go  in  the  Norumbia" 

"  Suppose  I  can't  get  as  good  a  room  on  the  Nor 
umbia  ?  " 

"  Then  we  must  stay." 

In  the  morning  after  a  night  so  bad  that  it  was 
worse  than  no  night  at  all,  she  said  she  would  go  to 
the  steamship  office  with  him  and  question  them  up 
about  the  Colmannia.  The  people  there  had  never 
heard  she  was  called  an  unlucky  boat;  they  knew  of 
nothing  disastrous  in  her  history.  They  were  so  frank 
and  so  full  in  their  denials,  and  so  kindly  patient  of 
Mrs.  March's  anxieties,  that  he  saw  every  word  was 
carrying  conviction  of  their  insincerity  to  her.  At 
the  end  she  asked  what  rooms  were  left  on  the  Nor- 
umbia,  and  the  clerk  whom  they  had  fallen  to  looked 
through  his  passenger  list  with  a  shaking  head.  He 
was  afraid  there  was  nothing  they  would  like. 


THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  19 

" But  we  would  take  anything"  she  entreated,  and 
March  smiled  to  think  of  his  innocence  in  supposing 
for  a  moment  that  she  had  ever  dreamed  of  not  going. 

"  We  merely  want  the  best,"  he  put  in.  "  One 
flight  up,  no  noise  or  dust,  with  sun  in  all  the  win 
dows,  and  a  place  for  fire  on  rainy  days." 

They  must  be  used  to  a  good  deal  of  American 
joking  which  they  do  not  understand,  in  the  foreign 
steamship  offices.  The  clerk  turned  unsmilingly  to 
one  of  his  superiors  and  asked  him  some  question  in 
German  which  March  could  not  catch,  perhaps  because 
it  formed  no  part  of  a  conversation  with  a  barber,  a 
bootmaker  or  a  banker.  A  brief  drama  followed,  and 
then  the  clerk  pointed  to  a  room  on  the  plan  of  the 
Norumbia  and  said  it  had  just  been  given  up,  and  they 
could  have  it  if  they  decided  to  take  it  at  once. 

They  looked,  and  it  was  in  the  very  place  of  their 
room  on  the  Colmannia;  it  was  within  one  of  being 
the  same  number.  It  was  so  providential,  if  it  was 
providential  at  all,  that  they  were  both  humbly  silent 
a  moment ;  even  Mrs.  March  was  silent.  In  this  su 
preme  moment  she  would  not  prompt  her  husband  by 
a  word,  a  glance,  and  it  was  from  his  own  free  will 
that  he  said,  "  We  will  take  it." 

He  thought  it  was  his  free  will,  but  perhaps  one's 
will  is  never  free ;  and  this  may  have  been  an  instance 
of  pure  determinism  from  all  the  events  before  it. 
No  event  that  followed  affected  it,  though  the  day 
after  they  had  taken  their  passage  on  the  Norumbia 
he  heard  that  she  had  once  been  in  the  worst  sort  of 
storm  in  the  month  of  August.  He  felt  obliged  to 


20  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

impart  the  fact  to  his  wife;  but  she  said  that  it  proved 
nothing  for  or  against  the  ship,  and  confounded  him 
more  by  her  reason  than  by  all  her  previous  unreason. 
Reason  is  what  a  man  is  never  prepared  for  in  women ; 
perhaps  because  he  finds  it  so  seldom  in  men. 


V. 

DURING  nearly  the  whole  month  that  now  passed 
before  the  date  of  sailing  it  seemed  to  March  that  in 
some  familiar  aspects  New  York  had  never  been  so 
interesting.  He  had  not  easily  reconciled  himself  to 
the  place  after  his  many  years  of  Boston ;  but  he  had 
got  used  to  the  ugly  grandeur,  to  the  noise  and  the 
rush,  and  he  had  divined  more  and  more  the  careless 
good-nature  and  friendly  indifference  of  the  vast, 
sprawling,  ungainly  metropolis.  There  were  happy 
moments  when  he  felt  a  poetry  unintentional  and  un 
conscious  in  it,  and  he  thought  there  was  no  point 
more  favorable  for  the  sense  of  this  than  Stuyvesant 
Square,  where  they  had  a  flat.  Their  windows  looked 
down  into  its  tree-tops,  and  across  them  to  the  trun 
cated  towers  of  St.  George's,  and  to  the  plain  red 
brick,  white-trimmed  front  of  the  Friends'  Meeting 
House ;  he  came  and  went  between  his  dwelling  and 
his  office  through  the  two  places  that  form  the  square, 
and  after  dinner  his  wife  and  he  had  a  habit  of  finding 
seats  by  one  of  the  fountains  in  Livingston  Place, 
among  the  fathers  and  mothers  of  the  hybrid  East 
Side  children  swarming  there  at  play.  The  elders 


22  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

read  their  English  or  Italian  or  German  or  Yiddish 
journals,  or  gossiped,  or  merely  sat  still  and  stared 
away  the  day's  fatigue ;  while  the  little  ones  raced  in 
and  out  among  them,  crying  and  laughing,  quarrelling 
and  kissing.  Sometimes  a  mother  darted  forward 
and  caught  her  child  from  the  brink  of  the  basin  ;  an 
other  taught  hers  to  walk,  holding  it  tightly  up  behind 
by  its  short  skirts ;  another  publicly  nursed  her  baby 
to  sleep. 

While  they  still  dreamed,  but  never  thought,  of  go 
ing  to  Europe,  the  Marches  often  said  how  European 
all  this  was ;  if  these  women  had  brought  their  knit 
ting  or  sewing  it  would  have  been  quite  European ; 
but  as  soon  as  they  had  decided  to  go,  it  all  began  to 
seem  poignantly  American.  In  like  manner,  before 
the  conditions  of  their  exile  changed,  and  they  still 
pined  for  the  Old  World,  they  contrived  a  very  agree 
able  illusion  of  it  by  dining  now  and  then  at  an 
Austrian  restaurant  in  Union  Square  ;  but  later  when 
they  began  to  be  homesick  for  the  American  scenes 
they  had  not  yet  left,  they  had  a  keener  retrospective 
joy  in  the  strictly  New  York  sunset  they  were  bowed 
out  into. 

The  sunsets  were  uncommonly  characteristic  that 
May  in  Union  Square.  They  were  the  color  of  the  red 
stripes  in  the  American  flag,  and  when  they  were  seen 
through  the  delirious  architecture  of  the  Broadway 
side,  or  down  the  perspective  of  the  cross-streets,  where 
the  elevated  trains  silhouetted  themselves  against  their 
pink,  they  imparted  a  feeling  of  pervasive  American 
ism  in  which  all  impression  of  alien  savors  and  civili- 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  23 

ties  was  lost.  One  evening  a  fire  flamed  up  in  Ho- 
boken,  and  burned  for  hours  against  the  west,  in  the 
lurid  crimson  tones  of  a  conflagration  as  memorably 
and  appealingly  native  as  the  colors  of  the  sunset. 

The  weather  for  nearly  the  whole  month  was  of  a 
mood  familiar  enough  in  our  early  summer,  and  it 
was  this  which  gave  the  sunsets  their  vitreous  pink. 
A  thrilling  coolness  followed  a  first  blaze  of  heat,  and 
in  the  long  respite  the  thoughts  almost  went  back  to 
winter  flannels.  But  at  last  a  hot  wave  was  tele 
graphed  from  the  West,  and  the  week  before  the 
Norumbia  sailed  was  an  anguish  of  burning  days  and 
breathless  nights,  which  fused  all  regrets  and  reluc 
tances  in  the  hope  of  escape,  and  made  the  exiles  of 
two  continents  long  for  the  sea,  with  no  care  for  either 
shore. 


VI. 

THEIR  steamer  was  to  sail  early ;  they  were  up  at 
dawn  because  they  had  scarcely  lain  down,  and  March 
crept  out  into  the  square  for  a  last  breath  of  its  morn 
ing  air  before  breakfast.  He  was  now  eager  to  be 
gone ;  he  had  broken  with  habit,  and  he  wished  to  put 
all  traces  of  the  past  out  of  sight.  But  this  was  curi 
ously  like  all  other  early  mornings  in  his  conscious 
ness,  and  he  could  not  alienate  himself  from  the 
wonted  environment.  He  stood  talking  on  every-day 
terms  of  idle  speculation  with  the  familiar  policeman, 
about  a  stray  parrot  in  the  top  of  one  of  the  trees, 
where  it  screamed  and  clawed  at  the  dead  branch  to 
which  it  clung.  Then  he  went  carelessly  in-doors 
again  as  if  he  were  secure  of  reading  the  reporter's 
story  of  it  in  that  next  day's  paper  which  he  should 
not  see. 

The  sense  of  an  inseverable  continuity  persisted 
through  the  breakfast,  which  was  like  other  break 
fasts  in  the  place  they  would  be  leaving  in  summer 
shrouds  just  as  they  always  left  it  at  the  end  of  June. 
The  illusion  was  even  heightened  by  the  fact  that 


THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  25 

their  son  was  to  be  in  the  apartment  all  summer,  and 
it  would  not  be  so  much  shut  up  as  usual.  The  heavy 
trunks  had  been  sent  to  the  ship  by  express  the  after 
noon  before,  and  they  had  only  themselves  and  their 
state-room  baggage  to  transport  to  Hoboken ;  they 
came  down  to  a  carriage  sent  from  a  neighboring  liv 
ery-stable,  and  exchanged  good-mornings  with  a  driver 
they  knew  by  name. 

March  had  often  fancied  it  a  chief  advantage  of 
living  in  New  York  that  you  could  drive  to  the  steam 
er  and  start  for  Europe  as  if  you  were  starting  for 
Albany ;  he  was  in  the  enjoyment  of  this  advantage 
now,  but  somehow  it  was  not  the  consolation  he  had 
expected.  He  knew,  of  course,  that  if  they  had  been 
coming  from  Boston,  for  instance,  to  sail  in  the  Nor- 
umbia,  they  would  probably  have  gone  on  board  the 
night  before,  and  sweltered  through  its  heat  among 
the  strange  smells  and  noises  of  the  dock  and  wharf, 
instead  of  breakfasting  at  their  own  table,  and 
smoothly  bowling  down  the  asphalt  on  to  the  ferry 
boat,  and  so  to  the  very  foot  of  the  gangway  at  the 
ship's  side,  all  in  the  cool  of  the  early  morning.  But 
though  he  had  now  the  cool  of  the  early  morning  on 
these  conditions,  there  was  by  no  means  enough  of  it. 
The  sun  was  already  burning  the  life  out  of  the  air, 
with  the  threat  of  another  day  of  the  terrible  heat 
that  had  prevailed  for  a  week  past;  and  that  last 
breakfast  at  home  had  not  been  gay,  though  it  had 
been  lively,  in  a  fashion,  through  Mrs.  March's  efforts 
to  convince  her  son  that  she  did  not  want  him  to  come 
and  see  them  off.  Of  her  daughter's  coming  all  the 


26  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

way  from  Chicago  there  was  no  question,  and  she 
reasoned  that  if  he  did  not  come  to  say  good-by  on 
board  it  would  be  the  same  as  if  they  were  not  going. 

"  Don't  you  want  to  go  ? "  March  asked  with  an 
obscure  resentment. 

"  I  don't  want  to  seem  to  go,"  she  said,  with  the 
calm  of  those  who  have  logic  on  their  side. 

As  she  drove  away  with  her  husband  she  was  not 
so  sure  of  her  satisfaction  in  the  feint  she  had  ar 
ranged,  though  when  she  saw  the  ghastly  partings  of 
people  on  board,  she  was  glad  she  had  not  allowed 
her  son  to  come.  She  kept  saying  this  to  herself,  and 
when  they  climbed  to  the  ship  from  the  wharf,  and 
found  themselves  in  the  crowd  that  choked  the  saloons 
and  promenades  and  passages  and  stairways  and  land 
ings,  she  said  it  more  than  once  to  her  husband. 

She  heard  weary  elders  pattering  empty  politenesses 
of  farewell  with  friends  who  had  come  to  see  them 
off,  as  they  stood  withdrawn  in  such  refuges  as  the 
ship's  architecture  afforded,  or  submitted  to  be  pushed 
and  twirled  about  by  the  surging  throng  when  they 
got  in  its  way.  She  pitied  these  in  their  affliction, 
which  she  perceived  that  they  could  not  lighten  or 
shorten,  but  she  had  no  patience  with  the  young  girls, 
who  broke  into  shrieks  of  nervous  laughter  at  the 
coming  of  certain  young  men,  and  kept  laughing  and 
beckoning  till  they  made  the  young  men  see  them ; 
and  then  stretched  their  hands  to  them  and  stood 
screaming  and  shouting  to  them  across  the  intervening 
heads  and  shoulders.  Some  girls,  of  those  whom  no 
one  had  come  to  bid  good-by,  made  themselves  merry, 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  27 

or  at  least  noisy,  by  rushing  off  to  the  dining-room 
and  looking  at  the  cards  on  the  bouquets  heaping  the 
tables,  to  find  whether  any  one  had  sent  them  flowers. 
Others  whom  young  men  had  brought  bunches  of  vio 
lets  hid  their  noses  in  them,  and  dropped  their  fans 
and  handkerchiefs  and  card-cases,  and  thanked  the 
young  men  for  picking  them  up.  Others  had  got 
places  in  the  music-room,  and  sat  there  with  open 
boxes  of  long-stemmed  roses  in  their  laps,  and  talked 
up  into  the  faces  of  the  men,  with  becoming  lifts  and 
slants  of  their  eyes  and  chins.  In  the  midst  of  the 
turmoil  children  struggled  against  people's  feet  and 
knees,  and  bewildered  mothers  flew  at  the  ship's  offi 
cers  and  battered  them  with  questions  alien  to  their 
respective  functions  as  they  amiably  stifled  about  in 
their  thiok  uniforms. 

Sailors,  slung  over  the  ship's  side  on  swinging  seats, 
were  placidly  smearing  it  with  paint  at  that  last  mo 
ment;  the  bulwarks  were  thickly  set  with  the  heads 
and  arms  of 'passengers  who  were  making  signs  to 
friends  on  shore,  or  calling  messages  to  them  that  lost 
themselves  in  louder  noises  midway.  Some  of  the 
women  in  the  steerage  were  crying;  they  were  probably 
not  going  to  Europe  for  pleasure  like  the  first-cabin 
passengers,  or  even  for  their  health  ;  on  the  wharf 
below  March  saw  the  face  of  one  young  girl  twisted 
with  weeping,  and  he  wished  he  had  not  seen  it.  He 
turned  from  it,  and  looked  into  the  eyes  of  his  son, 
who  was  laughing  at  his  shoulder.  He  said  that  he 
had  to  come  down  with  a  good-by  letter  from  his  sis 
ter,  which  he  made  an  excuse  for  following  them  ;  but 


28  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

he  had  always  meant  to  see  them  off,  he  owned.  The 
letter  had  just  come  with  a  special  delivery  stamp,  and 
it  warned  them  that  she  had  sent  another  good-by 
letter  with  some  flowers  on  board.  Mrs.  March  scolded 
at  them  both,  but  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  and  in  the 
renewed  stress  of  parting  which  he  thought  he  had 
put  from  him,  March  went  on  taking  note,  as  with 
alien  senses,  of  the  scene  before  him,  while  they  all 
talked  on  together,  and  repeated  the  nothings  they 
had  said  already. 

A  rank  odor  of  beet-root  sugar  rose  from  the  far- 
branching  sheds  where  some  freight  steamers  of  the 
line  lay,  and  seemed  to  mingle  chemically  with  the 
noise  which  came  up  from  the  wharf  next  to  the  Nor- 
umlia.  The  mass  of  spectators  deepened  and  dimmed 
away  into  the  shadow  of  the  roofs,  and  aUmg  their 
front  came  files  of  carriages  and  trucks  and  carts,  and 
discharged  the  arriving  passengers  and  their  baggage, 
and  were  lost  in  the  crowd,  which  they  penetrated 
like  slow  currents,  becoming  clogged  and  arrested 
from  time  to  time,  and  then  beginning  to  move  again. 

The  passengers  incessantly  mounted  by  the  canvas- 
draped  galleries  leading,  fore  and  aft,  into  the  ship. 
Bareheaded,  blue-jacketed,  brass-buttoned  stewards 
dodged  skilfully  in  and  out  among  them  with  their 
hand-bags,  hold-alls,  hat-boxes,  and  state-room  trunks, 
and  ran  before  them  into  the  different  depths  and 
heights  where  they  hid  these  burdens,  and  then  ran 
back  for  more.  Some  of  the  passengers  followed 
them  and  made  sure  that  their  things  were  put  in  the 
right  places ;  most  of  them  remained  wedged  among 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  29 

the  earlier  comers,  or  pushed  aimlessly  in  and  out  of 
the  doors  of  the  promenades. 

The  baggage  for  the  hold  continually  rose  in  huge 
blocks  from  the  wharf,  with  a  loud  clucking  of  the 
tackle,  and  sank  into  the  open  maw  of  the  ship,  mo 
mently  gathering  herself  for  her  long  race  seaward, 
with  harsh  hissings  and  rattlings  and  gurglings.  There 
was  no  apparent  reason  why  it  should  all  or  any  of  it 
end,  but  there  came  a  moment  when  there  began  to 
be  warnings  that  were  almost  threats  of  the  end.  The 
ship's  whistle  sounded,  as  if  marking  a  certain  inter 
val  ;  and  Mrs.  March  humbly  entreated,  sternly  com 
manded,  her  son  to  go  ashore,  or  else  be  carried  to 
Europe.  They  disputed  whether  that  was  the  last 
signal  or  not;  she  was  sure  it  was,  and  she  appealed 
to  Marclj,  who  was  moved  against  his  reason.  He 
affected  to  talk  calmly  with  his  son,  and  gave  him 
some  last  charges  about  Every  Other  Week. 

Some  people  now  interrupted  their  leave-taking; 
but  the  arriving  passengers  only  arrived  more  rapidly 
at  the  gang-ways ;  the  bulks  of  baggage  swung  more 
swiftly  into  the  air.  A  bell  rang,  and  there  rose  wom 
en's  cries,  "  Oh,  that  is  the  shore-bell ! "  and  men's 
protests,  "  It  is  only  the  first  bell !  "  More  and  more 
began  to  descend  the  gangways,  fore  and  aft,  and 
soon  outnumbered  those  who  were  coming  aboard. 

March  tried  not  to  be  nervous  about  his  son's  lin 
gering;  he  was  ashamed  of  his  anxiety;  but  he  said 
in  a  low  voice,  "  Better  be  off,  Tom." 

His  mother  now  said  she  did  not  care  if  Tom  were 
really  carried  to  Europe ;  and  at  last  he  said,  Well,  he 


30  THEIK    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

guessed  he  must  go  ashore,  as  if  there  had  been  no 
question  of  that  before;  and  then  she  clung  to  him 
and  would  not  let  him  go ;  but  she  acquired  merit  with 
herself  at  last  by  pushing  him  into  the  gangway  with 
her  own  hands :  he  nodded  and  waved  his  hat  from 
its  foot,  and  mixed  with  the  crowd. 

Presently  there  was  hardly  any  one  coming  aboard, 
and  the  sailors  began  to  undo  the  lashings  of  the  gang 
ways  from  the  ship's  side ;  files  of  men  on  the  wharf 
laid  hold  of  their  rails ;  the  stewards  guarding  their 
approach  looked  up  for  the  signal  to  come  aboard; 
and  in  vivid  pantomime  forbade  some  belated  leave- 
takers  to  ascend.  These  stood  aside,  exchanging 
bows  and  grins  with  the  friends  whom  they  could  not 
reach ;  they  all  tried  to  make  one  another  hear  some 
last  words.  The  moment  came  when  the  saloon  gang 
way  was  detached ;  then  it  was  pulled  ashore,  and  the 
section  of  the  bulwarks  opening  to  it  was  locked,  not 
to  be  unlocked  on  this  side  of  the  world.  An  inde 
finable  impulse  communicated  itself  to  the  steamer: 
while  it  still  seemed  motionless  it  moved.  The  thick 
spread  of  faces  on  the  wharf,  which  had  looked  at 
times  like  some  sort  of  strange  flowers  in  a  level  field, 
broke  into  a  universal  tremor,  and  the  air  above  them 
was  filled  with  hats  and  handkerchiefs,  as  if  with  the 
flight  of  birds  rising  from  the  field. 

The  Marches  tried  to  make  out  their  son's  face ; 
they  believed  that  they  did ;  but  they  decided  that  they 
had  not  seen  him,  and  his  mother  said  that  she  was 
glad ;  it  would  only  have  made  it  harder  to  bear, 
though  she  was  glad  he  had  come  over  to  say  good- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  31 

by :  it  had  seemed  so  unnatural  that  he  should  not, 
when  everybody  else  was  saying  good-by. 

On  the  wharf  color  was  now  taking  the  place  of 
form  ;  the  scene  ceased  to  have  the  effect  of  an  instan 
taneous  photograph;  it  was  like  an  impressionistic 
study.  As  the  ship  swung  free  of  the  shed  and  got 
into  the  stream,  the  shore  lost  reality.  Up  to  a  certain 
moment,  all  was  still  New  York,  all  was  even  Hobo- 
ken  ;  then  amidst  the  grotesque  and  monstrous  shows 
of  the  architecture  on  either  shore  March  felt  himself 
at  sea  and  on  the  way  to  Europe. 

The  fact  was  accented  by  the  trouble  people  were 
already  making  with  the  deck-steward  about  their 
steamer  chairs,  which  they  all  wanted  put  in  the  best 
places,  and  March,  with  a  certain  heart-ache,  was  in 
voluntarily  verifying  the  instant  in  which  he  ceased 
to  be  of  his  native  shores,  while  still  in  full  sight  of 
them,  when  he  suddenly  reverted  to  them,  and  as  it 
were  landed  on  them  again  in  an  incident  that  held 
him  breathless.  A  man,  bareheaded,  and  with  his  arms 
flung  wildly  abroad,  came  flying  down  the  promenade 
from  the  steerage.  "  Capitan  !  Capitan !  There  is 
a  woman  !  "  he  shouted  in  nondescript  English.  "  She 
must  go  hout !  She  must  go  hout !  "  Some  vital  fact 
imparted  itself  to  the  ship's  command  and  seemed  to 
penetrate  to  the  ship's  heart;  she  stopped,  as  if  with 
a  sort  of  majestic  relenting.  A  tug  panted  to  her 
side,  and  lifted  a  ladder  to  it;  the  bareheaded  man, 
and  a  woman  gripping  a  baby  in  her  arms,  sprawled 
safely  down  its  rungs  to  the  deck  of  the  tug,  and  the 
steamer  moved  seaward  again. 


32  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  What  is  it  ?  Oh,  what  is  it  ? "  his  wife  demanded 
of  March's  share  of  their  common  ignorance.  A 
young  fellow  passing  stopped,  as  if  arrested  by  the 
tragic  note  in  her  voice,  and  explained  that  the  woman 
had  left  three  little  children  locked  up  in  her  tene 
ment  while  she  came  to  bid  some  friends  on  board 
good-by. 

He  passed  on,  and  Mrs.  March  said,  "  What  a 
charming  face  he  had ! "  even  before  she  began  to 
wreak  upon  that  wretched  mother  the  overwrought 
sympathy  which  makes  good  women  desire  the  pun 
ishment  of  people  who  have  escaped  danger.  She 
would  not  hear  any  excuse  for  her.  "  Her  children 
oughtn't  to  have  been  out  of  her  mind  for  an  instant." 

"  Don't  you  want  to  send  back  a  line  to  ours  by  the 
pilot  ? "  March  asked. 

She  started  from  him.  "  Oh,  was  I  really  begin 
ning  to  forget  them  ?  " 

In  the  saloon  where  people  were  scattered  about 
writing  pilot's  letters  she  made  him  join  her  in  an 
impassioned  epistle  of  farewell,  which  once  more  left 
none  of  the  nothings  unsaid  that  they  had  many  times 
reiterated.  She  would  not  let  him  put  the  stamp  on, 
for  fear  it  would  not  stick,  and  she  had  an  agonizing 
moment  of  doubt  whether  it  ought  not  to  be  a  German 
stamp ;  she  was  not  pacified  till  the  steward  in  charge 
of  the  mail  decided. 

"  I  shouldn't  have  forgiven  myself,"  March  said, 
"  if  we  hadn't  let  Tom  know  that  twenty  minutes 
after  he  left  us  we  were  still  alive  and  well." 

"  It's  to  Bella,  too,"  she  reasoned. 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  33 

He  found  her  making  their  state-room  look  home 
like  with  their  familiar  things  when  he  came  with  their 
daughter's  steamer  letter  and  the  flowers  and  fruit  she 
had  sent.  She  said,  Very  well,  they  would  all  keep, 
and  went  on  with  her  unpacking.  He  asked  her  if 
she  did  not  think  these  home  things  made  it  rather 
ghastly,  and  she  said  if  he  kept  on  in  that  way  she 
should  certainly  go  back  on  the  pilot-boat.  He  per 
ceived  that  her  nerves  were  spent.  He  had  resisted 
the  impulse  to  an  ill-timed  joke  about  the  life-pre 
servers  under  their  berths  when  the  sound  of  the 
breakfast-horn,  wavering  first  in  the  distance,  found 
its  way  nearer  and  clearer  down  their  corridor. 


VII. 

IN  one  of  the  many  visits  to  the  steamship  office 
which  his  wife's  anxieties  obliged  him  to  make,  March 
had  discussed  the  question  of  seats  in  the  dining- 
saloon.  At  first  he  had  his  ambition  for  the  captain's 
table,  but  they  convinced  him  more  easily  than  he  af 
terwards  convinced  Mrs.  March  that  the  captain's  table 
had  become  a  superstition  of  the  past,  and  conferred 
no  special  honor.  It  proved  in  the  event  that  the  cap 
tain  of  the  Norumbia  had  the  good  feeling  to  dine  in  a 
lower  saloon  among  the  passengers  who  paid  least  for 
their  rooms.  But  while  the  Marches  were  still  in  their 
io-norance  of  this,  they  decided  to  get  what  adventure 
they  could  out  of  letting  the  head  steward  put  them 
whore  he  liked,  and  they  came  in  to  breakfast  with  a 
careless  curiosity  to  see  what  he  had  done  for  them. 

There'  seemed  scarcely  a  vacant  place  in  the  huge 
saloon ;  th.rough  the  oval  openings  in  the  centre  they 
looked  down  into  the  lower  saloon  and  up  into  the 
music-room,  ab?  thickly  thronged  with  breakfasters. 
The  tables  were\  brightened  with  the  bouquets  and  the 
floral  designs  of \ships,  anchors,  harps,  and  doves  sent 
to  the  lady  passengers,  and  at  one  time  the  Marches 
thought  they  welj-e  going  to  be  put  before  a  steam- 

•  \ 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  35 

yacht  realized  to  the  last  detail  in  blue  and  white  vio 
lets.  The  ports  of  the  saloon  were  open,  and  showed 
the  level  sea ;  the  ship  rode  with  no  motion  except  the 
tremor  from  her  screws.  The  sound  of  talking  and 
laughing  rose  with  the  clatter  of  knfves  and  forks  and 
the  clash  of  crockery ;  the  homely  smell  of  the  coffee 
and  steak  and  fish  mixed  with  the  spice  of  the  roses 
and  carnations ;  the  stewards  ran  hither  and  thither, 
and  a  young  foolish  joy  of  travel  welled  up  in  the 
elderly  hearts  of  the  pair.  When  the  head  steward 
turned  out  the  swivel-chairs  where  they  were  to  sit 
they  both  made  an  inclination  toward  the  people  al 
ready  at  table,  as  if  it  had  been  a  company  at  some 
far-forgotten  table  d'hote  in  the  later  sixties.  The 
head  steward  seemed  to  understand  as  well  as  speak 
English,  but  the  table-stewards  had  only  an  effect  of 
English,  which  they  eked  out  with  "  Bleace  ! "  for  all 
•occasions  of  inquiry,  apology,  or  reassurance,  as  the 
equivalent  of  their  native  "  Bitte  !  "  Otherwise  there 
was  no  reason  to  suppose  that  they  did  not  speak 
German,  which  was  the  language  of  a  good  half  of 
the  passengers.  The  stewards  looked  English,  how 
ever,  in  conformity  to  what  seems  the  ideal  of  every 
kind  of  foreign  seafaring  people,  and  that  went  a  good 
way  toward  making  them  intelligible. 

March,  to  whom  his  wife  mainly  left  their  obeisance, 
made  it  so  tentative  that  if  it  should  meet  no  response 
he  could  feel  that  it  had  been  nothing  more  than  a 
forward  stoop,  such  as  was  natural  in  sitting  down. 
He  need  not  really  have  taken  this  precaution ;  those 
whose  eyes  he  caught  more  or  less  nodded  in  return. 


36  THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

A  nice-looking  boy  of  thirteen  or  fourteen,  who  had 
the  place  on  the  left  of  the  lady  in  the  sofa  seat  under 
the  port,  bowed  with  almost  magisterial  gravity,  and 
made  the  lady  on  the  sofa  smile,  as  if  she  were  his 
mother  and  understood  him.  March  decided  that  she 
had  been  some  time  a  widow ;  and  he  easily  divined 
that  the  young  couple  on  her  right  had  been  so  little 
time  husband  •  and  wife  that  they  would  rather  not 
have  it  known.  Next  them  was  a  young  lady  whom 
he  did  not  at  first  think  so  good-looking  as  she  proved 
later  to  be,  though  she  had  at  once  a  pretty  nose,  with 
a  slight  upward  slant  at  the  point,  long  eyes  under 
fallen  lashes,  a  straight  forehead,  not  too  high,  and  a 
mouth  which  perhaps  the  exigencies  of  breakfasting 
did  not  allow  all  its  characteristic  charm.  She  had 
what  Mrs.  March  thought  interesting  hair,  of  a  dull 
black,  roughly  rolled  away  from  her  forehead  and 
temples  in  a  fashion  not  particularly  becoming  to  her, 
and  she  had  the  air  of  not  looking  so  well  as  she  might 
if  she  had  chosen.  The  elderly  man  on  her  right,  it 
was  easy  to  see,  was  her  father ;  they  had  a  family 
likeness,  though  his  fair  hair,  now  ashen  with  age, 
was  so  different  from  hers.  He  wore  his  beard  cut 
in  the  fashion  of  the  Second  Empire,  with  a  Louis 
Napoleonic  mustache,  imperial,  and  chin  tuft;  his 
neat  head  was  cropt  close,  and  there  was  something 
Gallic  in  its  effect  and  something  remotely  military : 
he  had  blue  eyes,  really  less  severe  than  he  meant, 
though  he  frowned  a  good  deal,  and  managed  them 
with  glances  of  a  staccato  quickness,  as  if  challenging 
a  potential  disagreement  with  his  opinions. 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  37 

The  gentleman  on  his  right,  who  sat  at  the  head  of 
the  table.,  was  of  the  humorous,  subironical  American 
expression,  and  a  smile  at  the  corner  of  his  kindly 
mouth,  under  an  iron-gray  full  beard  cut  short,  at 
once  questioned  and  tolerated  the  new-comers  as  he 
glanced  at  them.  He  responded  to  March's  bow  al 
most  as  decidedly  as  the  nice  boy,  whose  mother  he 
confronted  at  the  other  end  of  the  table,  and  with  his 
comely  bulk  formed  an  interesting  contrast  to  her 
vivid  slightness.  She  was  brilliantly  dark,  behind  the 
gleam  of  the  gold-rimmed  glasses  perched  on  her 
pretty  nose. 

If  the  talk  had  been  general  before  the  Marches 
came,  it  did  not  at  once  renew  itself  in  that  form. 
Nothing  was  said  while  they  were  having  their  first 
struggle  with  the  table-stewards,  who  repeated  the 
order  as  if  to  show  how  fully  they  had  misunderstood 
it.  The  gentleman  at  the  head  of  the  table  intervened 
at  last,  and  then,  "  I'm  obliged  to  you,"  March  said, 
"for  your  German.  1  left  mine  in  a  phrase-book  in 
my  other  coat  pocket." 

"  Oh,  I  wasn't  speaking  German,"  said  the  other. 
"  It  was  merely  their  kind  of  English." 

The  company  were  in  the  excitement  of  a  novel 
situation  which  disposes  people  to  acquaintance,  and 
this  exchange  of  small  pleasantries  made  every  one 
laugh,  except  the  father  and  daughter ;  but  they  had 
the  effect  of  being  tacitly  amused. 

The  mother  of  the  nice  boy  said  to  Mrs.  March, 
"  You  may  not  get  what  you  ordered,  but  it  will  be 
good." 


38  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JoURNEY. 

"  Even  if  you  don't  know  what  it  is  ! "  said  the 
young  bride,  and  then  blushed,  as  if  she  had  been  too 
bold. 

Mrs.  March  liked  the  blush  and  the  young  bride 
for  it,  and  she  asked,  "  Have  you  ever  been  on  one 
of  these  German  boats  before  ?  They  seem  very  com 
fortable." 

"  Oh,  dear,  no !  we've  never  been  on  any  boat  be 
fore."  She  made  a  little  petted  mouth  of  deprecation, 
and  added,  simple-heartedly,  "  My  husband  was  going 
out  on  business,  and  he  thought  he  might  as  well  take 
me  along." 

The  husband  seemed  to  feel  himself  brought  in  by 
this,  and  said  he  did  not  see  why  they  should  not 
make  it  a  pleasure-trip,  too.  They  put  themselves  in 
a  position  to  be  patronized  by  their  deference,  and  in 
the  pauses  of  his  talk  with  the  gentleman  at  the  head 
of  the  table,  March  heard  his  wife  abusing  their  inex 
perience  to  be  unsparingly  instructive  about  European 
travel.  He  wondered  whether  she  would  be  afraid  to 
own  that  it  was  nearly  thirty  years  since  she  had 
crossed  the  ocean ;  though  that  might  seem  recent  to 
people  who  had  never  crossed  at  all. 

They  listened  with  respect  as  she  boasted  in  what 
an  anguish  of  wisdom  she  had  decided  between  the 
Colmannia  and  the  Norumbia.  The  wife  said  she  did 
not  know  there  was  such  a  difference  in  steamers,  but 
when  Mrs.  March  perfervidly  assured  her  that  there 
was  all  the  difference  in  the  world,  she  submitted  and 
said  she  supposed  she  ought  to  be  thankful  that  they 
had  hit  upon  the  right  one.  They  had  telegraphed 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  39 

for  berths  and  taken  what  was  given  them  ;  their  room 
seemed  to  be  very  nice. 

"  Oh,"  said  Mrs.  March,  and  her  husband  knew 
that  she  was  saying  it  to  reconcile  them  to  the  inevit 
able,  "  all  the  rooms  on  the  Norumbia  are  nice.  The 
only  difference  is  that  if  they  are  on  the  south  side 
you  have  the  sun." 

"  I'm  not  sure  which  is  the  south  side,"  said  the 
bride.  "  We  seem  to  have  been  going  west  ever  since 
we  started,  and  I  feel  as  if  we  should  reach  home  in 
the  morning  if  we  had  a  good  night.  Is  the  ocean 
always  so  smooth  as  this  ?  " 

"  Oh,  dear,  no  ! "  said  Mrs.  March.  "  It's  never  so 
smooth  as  this,"  and  she  began  to  be  outrageously 
authoritative  about  the  ocean  weather.  She  ended  by 
declaring  that  the  June  passages  were  always  good, 
and  that  if  the  ship  kept  a  southerly  course  they 
would  have  no  fogs  and  no  icebergs.  She  looked 
round,  and  caught  her  husband's  eye.  "What  is  it? 
Have  I  been  bragging  ?  Well,  you  understand,"  she 
added  to  the  bride,  "  I've  only  been  over  once,  a  great 
while  ago,  and  I  don't  really  know  anything  about  it," 
and  they  laughed  together.  "  But  I  talked  so  much 
with  people  after  we  decided  to  go,  that  I  feel  as  if  I 
had  been  a  hundred  times." 

"  I  know,"  said  the  other  lady,  with  caressing  intel 
ligence.  "  That  is  just  the  way  with — "  She  stopped, 
and  looked  at  the  young  man  whom  the  head  steward 
was  bringing  up  to  take  the  vacant  place  next  to 
March.  He  came  forward,  stuffing  his  cap  into  the 
pocket  of  his  blue  serge  sack,  and  smiled  down  on  the 


40  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

company  with  such  happiness  in  his  gay  eyes  that 
March  wondered  what  chance  at  this  late  day  could 
have  given  any  human  creature  his  content  so  abso 
lute,  and  what  calamity  could  be  lurking  round  the 
corner  to  take  it  out  of  him.  The  new-comer  looked 
at  March  as  if  he  knew  him,  and  March  saw  at  a  sec 
ond  glance  that  he  was  the  young  fellow  who  had  told 
him  about  the  mother  put  off  after  the  start.  lie 
asked  him  whether  there  was  any  change  in  the 
weather  yet  outside,  and  he  answered  eagerly,  as  if 
the  chance  to  put  his  happiness  into  the  mere  sound 
of  words  were  a  favor  done  him,  that  their  ship  had 
just  spoken  one  of  the  big  Hanseatic  mail-boats,  and 
she  had  signalled  back  that  she  had  met  ice ;  so  that 
they  would  probably  keep  a  southerly  course,  and  not 
have  it  cooler  till  they  were  off  the  Banks. 

The  mother  of  the  boy  said,  "  I  thought  we  must 
be  off  the  Banks  when  I  came  out  of  my  room,  but  it 
was  only  the  electric  fan  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs." 

"  That  was  what  /  thought,"  said  Mrs.  March.  "  I 
almost  sent  my  husband  back  for  my  shawl !  "  Both 
the  ladies  laughed  and  liked  each  other  for  their  com 
mon  experience. 

The  gentleman  at  the  head  of  the  table  said, 
"  They  ought  to  have  fans  going  there  by  that  pillar, 
or  else  close  the  ports.  They  only  let  in  heat." 

They  easily  conformed  to  the  American  convention 
of  jocosity  in  their  talk ;  it  perhaps  no  more  represents 
the  individual  mood  than  the  convention  of  dulness 
among  other  people ;  but  it  seemed  to  make  the  young 
man  feel  at  home. 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  41 

"  Why,  do  you  think  it's  uncomfortably  warm  ? " 
he  asked,  from  what  March  perceived  to  be  a  meteor 
ology  of  his  own.  He  laughed  and  added,  "  It  is 
pretty  summerlike,"  as  if  he  had  not  thought  of  it 
before.  He  talked  of  the  big  mail-boat,  and  said  he 
would  like  to  cross  on  such  a  boat  as  that,  and  then 
he  glanced  at  the  possible  advantage  of  having  your 
own  steam-yacht  like  the  one  which  he  said  they  had 
just  passed,  so  near  that  you  could  see  what  a  good 
time  the  people  were  having  on  board.  He  began  to 
speak  to  the  Marches ;  his  talk  spread  to  the  young 
couple  across  the  table ;  it  visited  the  mother  on  the 
sofa  in  a  remark  which  she  might  ignore  without  ap 
parent  rejection,  and  without  really  avoiding  the  boy, 
it  glanced  off  toward  the  father  and  daughter,  from 
whom  it  fell,  to  rest  with  the  gentleman  at  the  head 
of  the  table. 

It  was  not  that  the  father  and  daughter  had  slight 
ed  his  overture,  if  it  was  so  much  as  that,  but  that 
they  were  tacitly  preoccupied,  or  were  of  some  phil 
osophy  concerning  their  fellow-breakfasters  which  did 
not  suffer  them,  for  the  present,  at  least,  to  share  in 
the  common  friendliness.  This  is  an  attitude  some 
times  produced  in  people  by  a  sense  of  just,  or  even 
unjust,  superiority ;  sometimes  by  serious  trouble ; 
sometimes  by  transient  annoyance.  The  cause  was 
not  so  deep-seated  but  Mrs.  March,  before  she  rose 
from  her  place,  believed  that  she  had  detected  a  slant 
of  the  young  lady's  eyes,  from  under  her  lashes,  tow 
ard  the  young  man  ;  and  she  leaped  to  a  conclusion 
concerning  them  in  a  matter  where  all  logical  steps 


42  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

are  impertinent.  She  did  not  announce  her  arrival  at 
this  point  till  the  young  man  had  overtaken  her  before 
she  got  out  of  the  saloon,  and  presented  the  handker 
chief  she  had  dropped  under  the  table. 

He  went  away  with  her  thanks,  and  then  she  said 
to  her  husband,  "  Well,  he's  perfectly  charming,  and 
I  don't  wonder  she's  taken  with  him ;  that  kind  of 
cold  girl  would  be,  though  I'm  not  sure  that  she  is 
cold.  She's  interesting,  and  you  could  see  that  he 
thought  so,  the  more  he  looked  at  her  ;  I  could  see 
him  looking  at  her  from  the  very  first  instant ;  he 
couldn't  keep  his  eyes  off  her  ;  she  piqued  his  curios 
ity,  and  made  him  wonder  about  her." 

"  Now,  look  here,  Isabel !  This  won't  do.  I  can 
stand  a  good  deal,  but  I  sat  between  you  and  that 
young  fellow,  and  you  couldn't  tell  whether  he  was 
looking  at  that  girl  or  not." 

"  I  could !  I  could  tell  by  the  expression  of  her 
face." 

"  Oh,  well !  If  it's  gone  as  far  as  that  with  you,  I 
give  it  up.  When  are  you  going  to  have  them  mar 
ried?" 

"  Nonsense !  I  want  you  to  find  out  who  all  those 
people  are.  How  are  you  going  to  do  it  ? " 

"  Perhaps  the  passenger  list  will  say,"  he  suggested. 


VIII. 

THE  list  did  not  say  of  itself,  but  with  the  help  of 
the  head  steward's  diagram  it  said  that  the  gentleman 
at  the  head  of  the  table  was  Mr.  R.  M.  Kenby ;  the 
father  and  the  daughter  were  Mr.  E.  B.  Triscoe  and 
Miss  Triscoe ;  the  bridal  pair  were  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lef- 
fers ;  the  mother  and  her  son  were  Mrs.  Adding  and 
Mr.  Roswell  Adding ;  the  young  man  who  came  in 
last  was  Mr.  L.  J.  Burnamy.  March  carried  the  list, 
with  these  names  carefully  checked  and  rearranged 
on  a  neat  plan  of  the  table,  to  his  wife  in  her  steamer 
chair,  and  left  her  to  make  out  the  history  and  the 
character  of  the  people  from  it.  In  this  sort  of  con 
jecture  long  experience  had  taught  him  his  futility, 
and  he  strolled  up  and  down  and  looked  at  the  life 
about  him  with  no  wish  to  penetrate  it  deeply. 

Long  Island  was  now  a  low  yellow  line  on  the  left. 
Some  fishing-boats  flickered  off  the  shore ;  they  met 
a  few  sail,  and  left  more  behind ;  but  already,  and 
so  near  one  of  the  greatest  ports  of  the  world,  the 
spacious  solitude  of  the  ocean  was  beginning.  There 
was  no  swell ;  the  sea  lay  quite  flat,  with  a  fine  mesh 
of  wrinkles  on  its  surface,  arid  the  sun  flamed  down 


44  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

upon  it  from  a  sky  without  a  cloud.  With  the  light 
fair  wind,  there  was  no  resistance  in  the  sultry  air., 
the  thin,  dun  smoke  from  the  smoke-stack  fell  about 
the  decks  like  a  stifling  veil. 

The  promenades  were  as  uncomfortably  crowded  as 
the  sidewalk  of  Fourteenth  Street  on  a  summer's  day, 
and  showed  much  the  social  average  of  a  New  York 
shopping  thoroughfare.  Distinction  is  something 
that  does  not  always  reveal  itself  at  first  sight  on 
land,  and  at  sea  it  is  still  more  retrusive.  A  certain 
democracy  of  looks  and  clothes  was  the  most  notable 
thing  to  March  in  the  apathetic  groups  and  detached 
figures.  His  criticism  disabled  the  saloon  passengers 
of  even  so  much  personal  appeal  as  he  imagined  in 
some  of  the  second-cabin  passengers  whom  he  saw 
across  their  barrier ;  they  had  at  least  the  pathos  of 
their  exclusion,  and  he  could  wonder  if  they  felt  it  or 
envied  him.  At  Hoboken  he  had  seen  certain  people 
coming  on  board  who  looked  like  swells;  but  they 
had  now  either  retired  from  the  crowd,  or  they  had 
already  conformed  to  the  prevailing  type.  It  was 
very  well  as  a  type ;  he  was  of  it  himself ;  but  he 
wished  that  beauty  as  well  as  distinction  had  not  been 
so  lost  in  it. 

In  fact,  he  no  longer  saw  so  much  beauty  anywhere 
as  he  once  did.  It  might  be  that  he  saw  life  more 
truly  than  when  he  was  young,  and  that  his  glasses 
were  better  than  his  eyes  had  been ;  but  there  were 
analogies  that  forbade  his  thinking  so,  and  he  some 
times  had  his  misgivings  that  the  trouble  was  with 
his  glasses.  He  made  what  he  could  of  a  pretty  girl 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  45 

who  had  the  air  of  not  meaning  to  lose  a  moment 
from  flirtation,  and  was  luring  her  fellow-passengers 
from  under  her  sailor  hat.  She  had  already  attached 
one  of  them  ;  and  she  was  looking  out  for  more.  She 
kept  moving  herself  from  the  waist  up,  as  if  she 
worked  there  on  a  pivot,  showing  now  this  side  and 
now  that  side  of  her  face,  and  visiting  the  admirer 
she  had  secured  with  a  smile  as  from  the  lamp  of  a 
revolving  light  as  she  turned. 

While  he  was  dwelling  upon  this  folly,  with  a  sense 
of  impersonal  pleasure  in  it  as  complete  through  his 
years  as  if  he  were  already  a  disembodied  spirit,  the 
pulse  of  the  engines  suddenly  ceased,  and  he  joined 
the  general  rush  to  the  rail,  with  a  fantastic  expecta 
tion  of  seeing  another  distracted  mother  put  off;  but 
it  was  only  the  pilot  leaving  the  ship.  He  was  climb 
ing  down  the  ladder  which  hung  over  the  boat,  rising 
and  sinking  on  the  sea  below,  while  the  two  men  in 
her  held  her  from  the  ship's  side  with  their  oars  ;  in 
the  offing  lay  the  white  steam-yacht  which  now  re 
places  the  picturesque  pilot-sloop  of  other  times. 
The  Norumbia's  screws  turned  again  under  half  a 
head  of  steam  ;  the  pilot  dropped  from  the  last  rung 
of  the  ladder  into  the  boat,  and  caught  the  bundle  of 
letters  tossed  after  him.  Then  his  men  let  go  the 
line  that  was  towing  their  craft,  and  the  incident  of 
the  steamer's  departure  was  finally  closed.  It  had 
been  dramatically  heightened  perhaps  by  her  final 
impatience  to  be  off  at  some  added  risks  to  the  pilot 
and  his  men,  but  not  painfully  so,  and  March  smiled 
to  think  how  men  whose  lives  are  full  of  dangerous 


46  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

chances  seem  always  to  take  as  many  of  them  as  they 
can. 

He  heard  a  girl's  fresh  voice  saying  at  his  shoulder, 
"  Well,  now  we  are  off ;  and  I  suppose  you're  glad, 
papa ! " 

"  I'm  glad  we're  not  taking  the  pilot  on,  at  least," 
answered  the  elderly  man  whom  the  girl  had  spoken 
to ;  and  March  turned  to  see  the  father  and  daughter 
whose  reticence  at  the  breakfast  table  had  interested 
him.  He  wondered  that  he  had  left  her  out  of  the 
account  in  estimating  the  beauty  of  the  ship's  pas 
sengers  :  he  saw  now  that  she  was  not  only  extremely 
pretty,  but  as  she  moved  away  she  was  very  graceful ; 
she  even  had  distinction.  He  had  fancied  a  tone  of 
tolerance,  and  at  the  same  time  of  reproach  in  her 
voice,  when  she  spoke,  and  a  tone  of  defiance  and  not 
very  successful  denial  in  her  father's ;  and  he  went 
back  with  these  impressions  to  his  wife,  whom  he 
thought  he  ought  to  tell  why  the  ship  had  stopped. 

She  had  not  noticed  the  ship's  stopping,  in  her 
study  of  the  passenger  list,  and  she  did  not  care  for 
the  pilot's  leaving ;  but  she  seemed  to  think  his  having 
overheard  those  words  of  the  father  and  daughter  an 
event  of  prime  importance.  With  a  woman's  willing 
ness  to  adapt  the  means  to  the  end  she  suggested  that 
he  should  follow  them  up  and  try  to  overhear  some 
thing  more ;  she  only  partially  realized  the  infamy  of 
her  suggestion  when  he  laughed  in  scornful  refusal. 

"  Of  course  I  don't  want  you  to  eavesdrop,  but  I 
do  want  you  to  find  out  about  them.  And  about  Mr. 
Burnamy,  too.  I  can  wait,  about  the  others,  or  man- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  47 

age  for  myself,  but  these  are  driving  me  to  distrac 
tion.     Now,  will  you  ?  " 

He  said  he  would  do  anything  he  could  with  honor, 
and  at  one  of  the  earliest  turns  he  made  on  the  other 
side  of  the  ship  he  was  smilingly  halted  by  Mr.  Bur- 
namy,  who  asked  to  be  excused,  and  then  asked  if  he 
were  not  Mr.  March  of  Every  Other  Week ;  he  had 
seen  the  name  on  the  passenger  list,  and  felt  sure  it 
must  be  the  editor's.  He  seemed  so  trustfully  to  ex 
pect  March  to  remember  his  own  name  as  that  of  a 
writer  from  whom  he  had  accepted  a  short  poem,  yet 
unprinted,  that  the  editor  feigned  to  do  so  until  he 
really  did  dimly  recall  it.  He  even  recalled  the  short 
poem,  and  some  civil  words  he  said  about  it  caused 
Burnamy  to  overrun  in  confidences  that  at  once 
touched  and  amused  him. 


IX. 

BURNAMY,  it  seemed,  had  taken  passage  on  the 
Norumbia  because  he  found,  when  he  arrived  in  New 
York  the  day  before,  that  she  was  the  first  boat  out. 
His  train  was  so  much  behind  time  that  when  he 
reached  the  office  of  the  Hanseatic  League  it  was 
nominally  shut,  but  he  pushed  in  by  sufferance  of  the 
janitor,  and  found  a  berth,  which  had  just  been  given 
up,  in  one  of  the  saloon-deck  rooms.  It  was  that  or 
nothing;  and  he  felt  rich  enough  to  pay  for  it  himself 
if  the  Bird  of  Prey,  who  had  cabled  him  to  come  out 
to  Carlsbad  as  his  secretary,  would  not  stand  the  dif 
ference  between  the  price  and  that  of  the  lower-deck 
six-in-a-room  berth  which  he  would  have  taken  if  he 
had  been  allowed  a  choice. 

With  the  three  hundred  dollars  he  had  got  for  his 
book,  less  the  price  of  his  passage,  changed  into  Ger 
man  bank-notes  and  gold  pieces,  and  safely  buttoned 
in  the  breast  pocket  of  his  waistcoat,  he  felt  as  safe 
from  pillage  as  from  poverty  when  he  came  out  from 
buying  his  ticket ;  he  covertly  pressed  his  arm  against 
his  breast  from  time  to  time,  for  the  joy  of  feeling 
his  money  there  and  not  from  any  fear  of  finding  it 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  49 

gone.  He  wanted  to  sing,  he  wanted  to  dance ;  he 
could  not  believe  it  was  he,  as  he  rode  up  the  lonely 
length  of  Broadway  in  the  cable-car,  between  the  wild, 
irregular  walls  of  the  canyon  which  the  cable-cars 
have  all  to  themselves  at  the  end  of  a  summer  after 
noon. 

He  went  and  dined,  and  he  thought  he  dined  well, 
at  a  Spanish- American  restaurant,  for  fifty  cents,  with 
a  half-bottle  of  California  claret  included.  When  he 
came  back  to  Broadway  he  was  aware  that  it  was 
stiflingly  hot  in  the  pinkish  twilight,  but  he  took  a 
cable-car  again  in  lack  of  other  pastime,  and  the  mo 
tion  served  the  purpose  of  a  breeze,  which  he  made 
the  most  of  by  keeping  his  hat  off.  It  did  not  really 
matter  to  him  whether  it  was  hot  or  cool ;  he  was  im- 
paradised  in  weather  which  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  temperature.  Partly  because  he  was  born  to  such 
weather,  in  the  gayety  of  soul  which  amused  some 
people  with  him,  and  partly  because  the  world  was 
behaving  as  he  had  always  expected,  he  was  opulently 
content  with  the  present  moment.  But  he  thought 
very  tolerantly  of  the  future,  and  he  confirmed  him 
self  in  the  decision  he  had  already  made,  to  stick  to 
Chicago  when  he  came  back  to  America.  New  York 
was  very  well,  and  he  had  no  sentiment  about  Chica 
go  ;  but  he  had  got  a  foothold  there  ;  he  had  done 
better  with  an  Eastern  publisher,  he  believed,  by  hail 
ing  from  the  West,  and  he  did  not  believe  it  would 
hurt  him  with  the  Eastern  public  to  keep  on  hailing 
from  the  West. 

He  was  glad  of  a  chance  to  see  Europe,  but  he  did 


50  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

not  mean  to  come  home  so  dazzled  as  to  see  nothing 
else  against  the  American  sky.  He  fancied,  for  he 
really  knew  nothing,  that  it  was  the  light  of  Europe, 
not  its  glare  that  he  wanted,  and  he  wanted  it  chiefly 
on  his  material,  so  as  to  see  it  more  and  more  object 
ively.  It  was  his  power  of  detachment  from  this  that 
had  enabled  him  to  do  his  sketches  in  the  paper  with 
such  charm  as  to  lure  a  cash  proposition  from  a  pub 
lisher  when  he  put  them  together  for  a  book,  but  he 
believed  that  his  business  faculty  had  much  to  do 
with  his  success ;  and  he  was  as  proud  of  that  as  of 
the  book  itself.  Perhaps  he  was  not  so  very  proud 
of  the  book ;  he  was  at  least  not  vain  of  it ;  he  could 
detach  himself  from  his  art  as  well  as  his  material. 

Like  all  literary  temperaments  he  was  of  a  certain 
hardness,  in  spite  of  the  susceptibilities  that  could  be 
used  to  give  coloring  to  his  work.  He  knew  this  well 
enough,  but  he  believed  that  there  were  depths  of 
unprofessional  tenderness  in  his  nature.  He  was 
good  to  his  mother,  and  he  sent  her  money,  and  wrote 
to  her  in  the  little  Indiana  town  where  he  had  left  her 
when  he  came  to  Chicago.  After  he  got  that  invita 
tion  from  the  Bird  of  Prey,  he  explored  his  heart  for 
some  affection  that  he  had  not  felt  for  him  before, 
and  he  found  a  wish  that  his  employer  should  not 
know  it  was  he  who  had  invented  that  nickname  for 
him.  He  promptly  avowed  this  in  the  newspaper 
office  which  formed  one  of  the  eyries  of  the  Bird  of 
Prey,  and  made  the  fellows  promise  not  to  give  him 
away.  He  failed  to  move  their  imagination  when  he 
brought  up  as  a  reason  for  softening  toward  him  that 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  51 

he  was  from  Burnamy's  own  part  of  Indiana,  and  was 
a  benefactor  of  Tippecanoe  University,  from  which 
Burnamy  was  graduated.  But  they  relished  the  cyn 
icism  of  his  attempt ;  and  they  were  glad  of  his  good 
luck,  which  he  was  getting  square  and  not  rhomboid, 
as  most  people  seem  to  get  their  luck.  They  liked 
him,  and  some  of  them  liked  him  for  his  clean  young 
life  as  well  as  for  his  cleverness.  His  life  was  known 
to  be  as  clean  as  a  girl's,  and  he  looked  like  a  girl 
with  his  sweet  eyes,  though  he  had  rather  more  chin 
than  most  girls. 

The  conductor  came  to  reverse  his  seat,  and  Bur 
namy  told  him  he  guessed  he  would  ride  back  with 
him  as  far  as  the  cars  to  the  Hoboken  Ferry,  if  the 
conductor  would  put  him  off  at  the  right  place.  It 
was  nearly  nine  o'clock,  and  he  thought  he  might  as 
well  be  going  over  to  the  ship,  where  he  had  decided 
to  pass  the  night.  After  he  found  her,  and  went  on 
board,  he  was  glad  he  had  not  gone  sooner.  A  queasy 
odor  of  drainage  stole  up  from  the  waters  of  the  dock, 
and  mixed  with  the  rank,  gross  sweetness  of  the  bags 
of  beet-root  sugar  from  the  freight-steamers;  there 
was  a  coming  and  going  of  carts  and  trucks  on  the 
wharf,  and  on  the  ship  a  rattling  of  chains  and  a 
clucking  of  pulleys,  with  sudden  outbreaks  and  then 
sudden  silences  of  trampling  sea-boots.  Burnamy 
looked  into  the  dining-saloon  and  the  music-room, 
with  the  notion  of  trying  for  some  naps  there ;  then 
he  went  to  his  state-room.  His  room-mate,  whoever 
he  was  to  be,  had  not  come ;  and  he  kicked  off  his 
shoes  and  threw  off  his  coat  and  tumbled  into  his  berth. 


52  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

He  meant  to  rest  awhile,  and  then  get  up  and  spend 
the  night  in  receiving  impressions.  He  could  not 
think  of  any  one  who  had  done  the  facts  of  the  eve 
of  sailing  on  an  Atlantic  liner.  He  thought  he  would 
use  the  material  first  in  a  letter  to  the  paper  and  after 
wards  in  a  poem ;  but  he  found  himself  unable  to 
grasp  the  notion  of  its  essential  relation  to  the  choice 
between  chicken  croquettes  and  sweetbreads  as  entrees 
of  the  restaurant  dinner  where  he  had  been  offered 
neither ;  he  knew  that  he  had  begun  to  dream,  and 
that  he  must  get  up.  He  was  just  going  to  get  up, 
when  he  woke  to  a  sense  of  freshness  in  the  air,  pen 
etrating  from  the  new  day  outside.  He  looked  at  his 
watch  and  found  it  was  quarter  past  six ;  he  glanced 
round  the  state-room  and  saw  that  he  had  passed  the 
night  alone  in  it.  Then  he  splashed  himself  hastily 
at  the  basin  next  his  berth,  and  jumped  into  his 
clothes,  and  went  on  deck,  anxious  to  lose  no  feature 
or  emotion  of  the  ship's  departure. 

When  she  was  fairly  off  he  returned  to  his  room  to 
change  the  thick  coat  he  had  put  on  at  the  instigation 
of  the  early  morning  air.  His  room-mate  was  still 
absent,  but  he  was  now  represented  by  his  state-room 
baggage,  and  Burnamy  tried  to  infer  him  from  it. 
He  perceived  a  social  quality  in  his  dress-coat  case, 
capacious  gladstone,  hat-box,  rug,  umbrella,  and  sole- 
leather  steamer  trunk  which  he  could  not  attribute  to 
his  own  equipment.  The  things  were  not  so  new  as 
his;  they  had  an  effect  of  polite  experience,  with  a 
foreign  registry  and  customs  label  on  them  here  and 
there.  They  had  been  chosen  with  both  taste  and 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  53 

knowledge,  and  Burnamy  would  have  said  that  they 
were  certainly  English  things,  if  it  had  not  been  for 
the  initials  U.  S.  A.  which  followed  the  name  of  E. 
B.  Triscoe  on  the  end  of  the  steamer  trunk  showing 
itself  under  the  foot  of  the  lower  berth. 

The  lower  berth  had  fallen  to  Burnamy  through 
the  default  of  the  passenger  whose  ticket  he  had  got 
at  the  last  hour ;  the  clerk  in  the  steamer  office  had 
been  careful  to  impress  him  with  this  advantage,  and 
he  now  imagined  a  trespass  on  his  property.  But  he 
reassured  himself  by  a  glance  at  his  ticket,  and  went 
out  to  watch  the  ship's  passage  down  the  stream  and 
through  the  Narrows.  After  breakfast  he  came  to 
his  room  again,  to  see  what  could  be  done  from  his 
valise  to  make  him  look  better  in  the  eyes  of  a  girl 
whom  he  had  seen  across  the  table ;  of  course  he  pro 
fessed  a  much  more  general  purpose.  He  blamed 
himself  for  not  having  got  at  least  a  pair  of  the  white 
tennis-shoes  which  so  many  of  the  passengers  were 
wearing ;  his  russet  shoes  had  turned  shabby  on  his 
feet ;  but  there  was  a  pair  of  enamelled  leather  boots 
in  his  bag  which  he  thought  might  do. 

His  room  was  in  the  group  of  cabins  on  the  upper 
deck ;  he  had  already  missed  his  way  to  it  once  by 
mistaking  the  corridor  which  it  opened  into ;  and  he 
was  not  sure  that  he  was  not  blundering  again  when 
he  peered  down  the  narrow  passage  where  he  supposed 
it  was.  A  lady  was  standing  at  an  open  state-room 
door,  resting  her  hands  against  the  jambs  and  leaning 
forward  with  her  head  within  and  talking  to  some  one 
there.  Before  he  could  draw  back  and  try  another 


54  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

corridor  he  heard  her  say :  "  Perhaps  he's  some  young 
man,  and  wouldn't  care." 

Burnamy  could  not  make  out  the  answer  that  came 
from  within.  The  lady  spoke  again  in  a  tone  of  re 
luctant  assent,  "  No,  I  don't  suppose  you  could ;  but 
if  he  understood,  perhaps  he  would  offer" 

She  drew  her  head  out  of  the  room,  stepping  back 
a  pace,  and  lingering  a  moment  at  the  threshold. 
She  looked  round  over  her  shoulder  and  discovered 
Burnamy,  where  he  stood  hesitating  at  the  head  of 
the  passage.  She  ebbed  before  him,  and  then  flowed 
round  him  in  her  instant  escape ;  with  some  murmured 
incoherencies  about  speaking  to  her  father,  she  van 
ished  in  a  corridor  on  the  other  side  of  the  ship, 
while  he  stood  staring  into  the  doorway  of  his  room. 

He  had  seen  that  she  was  the  young  lady  for  whom 
he  had  come  to  put  on  his  enamelled  shoes,  and  he 
saw  that  the  person  within  was  the  elderly  gentleman 
who  had  sat  next  her  at  breakfast.  He  begged  his 
pardon,  as  he  entered,  and  said  he  hoped  he  should 
not  disturb  him.  "  I'm  afraid  I  left  my  things  all 
over  the  place,  when  I  got  up  this  morning." 

The  other  entreated  him  not  to  mention  it  and  went 
on  taking  from  his  hand-bag  a  variety  of  toilet  appli 
ances  which  the  sight  of  made  Burnamy  vow  to  keep 
his  own  simple  combs  and  brushes  shut  in  his  valise 
all  the  way  over.  "  You  slept  on  board,  then,"  he 
suggested,  arresting  himself  with  a  pair  of  low  shoes 
in  his  hand  ;  he  decided  to  put  them  in  a  certain 
pocket  of  his  steamer  bag. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  Burnamy  laughed,  nervously :  "  I  came 


THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  55 

near  oversleeping,  and  getting  off  to  sea  without  know 
ing  it;  and  I  rushed  out  to  save  myself,  and  so — " 

He  began  to  gather  up  his  belongings  while  he 
followed  the  movements  of  Mr.  Triscoe  with  a  wistful 
eye.  He  would  have  liked  to  offer  his  lower  berth 
to  this  senior  of  his,  when  he  saw  him  arranging  to 
take  possession  of  the  upper;  but  he  did  not  quite 
know  how  to  manage  it.  He  noticed  that  as  the  other 
moved  about  he  limped  slightly,  unless  it  were  rather 
a  weary  easing  of  his  person  from  one  limb  to  the 
other.  He  stooped  to  pull  his  trunk  out  from  under 
the  berth,  and  Burnamy  sprang  to  help  him. 

"  Let  me  get  that  out  for  you !  "  He  caught  it  up 
and  put  it  on  the  sofa  under  the  port.  "  Is  that  where 
you  want  it  ? " 

"  Why,  yes,"  the  other  assented.  "  You're  very 
good,"  and  as  he  took  out  his  key  to  unlock  the  trunk 
he  relented  a  little  farther  to  the  intimacies  of  the  sit 
uation.  "  Have  you  arranged  with  the  bath-steward 
yet  ?  It's  such  a  full  boat." 

"  No,  I  haven't,"  said  Burnamy,  as  if  he  had  tried 
and  failed ;  till  then  he  had  not  known  that  there  was 
a  bath-steward.  "  Shall  I  get  him  for  you  ?  " 

"  No ;  no.  Our  bedroom-steward  will  send  him,  I 
dare  say,  thank  you." 

Mr.  Triscoe  had  got  his  trunk  open,  and  Burnamy 
had  no  longer  an  excuse  for  lingering.  In  his  defeat 
concerning  the  bath-steward,  as  he  felt  it  to  be,  he 
had  not  the  courage,  now,  to  offer  the  lower  berth. 
He  went  away,  forgetting  to  change  his  shoes ;  but  he 
came  back,  and  as  soon  as  he  got  the  enamelled  shoes 


56  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

on,  and  shut  the  shabby  russet  pair  in  his  bag,  he 
said,  abruptly :  "  Mr.  Triscoe,  I  wish  you'd  take  the 
lower  berth.  I  got  it  at  the  eleventh  hour  by  some 
fellow's  giving  it  up,  and  it  isn't  as  if  I'd  bargained 
for  it  a  month  ago." 

The  elder  man  gave  him  one  of  his  staccato  glances 
in  which  Burnamy  fancied  suspicion  and  even  resent 
ment.  But  he  said,  after  the  moment  of  reflection 
which  he  gave  himself,  "Why,  thank  you,  if  you 
don't  mind,  really." 

"  Not  at  all !  "  cried  the  young  man.  "  I  should 
like  the  upper  berth  better.  We'll  have  the  steward 
change  the  sheets." 

"  Oh,  I'll  see  that  he  does  that,"  said  Mr.  Triscoe. 
"  I  couldn't  allow  you  to  take  any  trouble  about  it." 
He  now  looked  as  if  he  wished  Burnamy  would  go, 
and  leave  him  to  his  domestic  arrangements. 


IN  telling  about  himself  Burnamy  touched  only 
upon  the  points  which  he  believed  would  take  his  list 
ener's  intelligent  fancy,  and  he  stopped  so  long  before 
he  had  tired  him  that  March  said  he  would  like  to 
introduce  him  to  his  wife.  He  saw  in  the  agreeable 
young  fellow  an  image  of  his  own  youth,  with  some 
differences  which,  he  was  willing  to  own,  were  to  the 
young  fellow's  advantage.  But  they  were  both  from 
the  middle  West;  in  their  native  accent  and  their 
local  tradition  they  were  the  same ;  they  were  the 
same  in  their  aspirations ;  they  were  of  one  blood  in 
their  literary  impulse  to  externate  their  thoughts  and 
emotions. 

Burnamy  answered,  with  a  glance  at  his  enamelled 
shoes,  that  he  would  be  delighted,  and  when  her  hus 
band  brought  him  up  to  her,  Mrs.  March  said  she  was 
always  glad  to  meet  the  contributors  to  the  magazine, 
and  asked  him  whether  he  knew  Mr.  Kendricks,  who 
was  her  favorite.  Without  giving  him  time  to  reply 
to  a  question  that  seemed  to  depress  him,  she  said 
that  she  had  a  son  who  must  be  nearly  his  own  age, 


58  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

and  whom  his  father  had  left  in  charge  of  Every  Other 
W  eek  for  the  few  months  they  were  to  be  gone ;  that 
they  had  a  daughter  married  and  living  in  Chicago. 
She  made  him  sit  down  by  her  in  March's  chair,  and 
before  he  left  them  March  heard  him  magnanimously 
asking  whether  Mr.  Kendricks  was  going  to  do  some 
thing  more  for  the  magazine  soon.  He  sauntered 
away  and  did  not  know  how  quickly  Burnamy  left 
this  question  to  say,  with  the  laugh  and  blush  which 
became  him  in  her  eyes: 

"  Mrs.  March,  there  is  something  I  should  like  to 
tell  you  about,  if  you  will  let  me." 

"  Why,  certainly,  Mr.  Burnamy,"  she  began,  but 
she  saw  that  he  did  not  wish  her  to  continue. 

"  Because,"  he  went  on,  "  it's  a  little  matter  that  I 
shouldn't  like  to  go  wrong  in." 

He  told  her  of  his  having  overheard  what  Miss 
Triscoe  had  said  to  her  father,  and  his  belief  that  she 
was  talking  about  the  lower  berth.  He  said  he  would 
have  wished  to  offer  it,  of  course,  but  now  he  was 
afraid  they  might  think  he  had  overheard  them  and 
felt  obliged  to  do  it. 

"  I  see,"  said  Mrs.  March,  and  she  added,  thought 
fully,  "  She  looks  like  rather  a  proud  girl." 

"  Yes,"  the  young  fellow  sighed. 

"  She  is  very  charming,"  she  continued,  thought 
fully,  but  not  so  judicially. 

"  Well,"  Burnamy  owned,  '*  that  is  certainly  one  of 
the  complications,"  and  they  laughed  together. 

She  stopped  herself  after  saying,  "  I  see  what  you 
mean,"  and  suggested,  "  I  think  I  should  be  guided 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  59 

by  circumstances.     It  needn't  be  done  at  once,  I  sup 
pose." 

"  Well,"  Burnamy  began,  and  then  he  broke  out, 
with  a  laugh  of  embarrassment,  u  I've  done  it  already." 
"  Oh  !     Then  it  wasn't  my  advice,  exactly,  that  you 
wanted." 
"  No  "— 

"  And  how  did  he  take  it  ? " 

"  He  said  he  should  be  glad  to  make  the  exchange 
if  I  really  didn't  mind."  Burnamy  had  risen  restlessly, 
and  she  did  not  ask  him  to  stay.     She  merely  said : 
"  Oh,  well,  I'm  glad  it  turned  out  so  nicely." 
"  I'm  so  glad  you  think  it  was  the  thing  to  do." 
He  managed  to  laugh  again,  but  he  could  not  hide 
from  her  that  he  was  not  feeling  altogether  satisfied. 
"  Would  you  like  me  to  send   Mr.  March,  if  I  see 
him  ? "  he  asked,  as  if  he  did  not  know  on  what  other 
terms  to  get  away. 

"  Do,  please  !  "  she  entreated,  and  it  seemed  to  her 
that  he  had  hardly  left  her  when  her  husband  came 
up.  "  Why,  where  in  the  world  did  he  find  you  so 
soon  ? " 

"  Did  you  send  him  for  me  ?  I  was  just  hanging 
round  for  him  to  go."  March  sank  into  the  chair  at 
her  side.  "  Well,  is  he  going  to  marry  her  ? " 

"  Oh,  you  may  laugh  !  But  there  is  something 
very  exciting !  "  She  told  him  what  had  happened, 
and  of  her  belief  that  Burnamy's  handsome  behavior 
had  somehow  not  been  met  in  kind. 

March  gave  himself  the  pleasure  of  an  immense 
laugh.  "  It  seems  to  me  that  this  Mr.  Burnamy  of 


60  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

yours  wanted  a  little  more  gratitude  than  he  was  en 
titled  to.  Why  shouldn't  he  have  offered  him  the 
lower  berth  ?  And  why  shouldn't  the  old  gentleman 
have  taken  it  just  as  he  did  ?  Did  you  want  him  to 
make  a  counter-offer  of  his  daughter's  hand  ?  If  he 
does,  I  hope  Mr.  Burnamy  won't  come  for  your  advice 
till  after  he's  accepted  her." 

"  He  wasn't  very  candid.  I  hoped  you  would  speak 
about  that.  Don't  you  think  it  was  rather  natural, 
though  ? " 

"  For  him,  very  likely.  But  I  think  you  would  call 
it  sinuous  in  some  one  you  hadn't  taken  a  fancy  to." 

"  No,  no.  I  wish  to  be  just.  I  don't  see  how  he 
could  have  come  straight  at  it.  And  he  did  own  up 
at  last."  She  asked  him  what  Burnamy  had  done 
for  the  magazine,  and  he  could  remember  nothing  but 
that  one  small  poem,  yet  unprinted ;  he  was  rather 
vague  about  its  value,  but  said  it  had  temperament. 

"  He  has  temperament,  too,"  she  commented,  and 
she  had  made  him  tell  her  everything  he  knew,  or 
could  be  forced  to  imagine  about  Burnamy,  before 
she  let  the  talk  turn  to  other  things. 

The  life  of  the  promenade  had  already  settled  into 
seafaring  form ;  the  steamer  chairs  were  full,  and  peo 
ple  were  reading  or  dozing  in  them  with  an  effect  of 
long  habit.  Those  who  would  be  walking  up  and 
down  had  begun  their  walks ;  some  had  begun  going 
in  and  out  of  the  smoking-room;  ladies  who  were 
easily  affected  by  the  motion  were  lying  down  in  the 
music-room.  Groups  of  both  sexes  were  standing  at 
intervals  along  the  rail,  and  the  promenaders  were 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  6L 

obliged  to  double  on  a  briefer  course  or  work  slowly 
round  them.  Shuffleboard  parties  at  one  point  and 
ring-toss  parties  at  another  were  forming  among  the 
young  people.  It  was  as  lively  and  it  was  as  dull  as 
it  would  be  two  thousand  miles  at  sea.  It  was  not 
the  least  cooler,  yet;  but  if  you  sat  still  you  did  not 
suffer. 

In  the  prompt  monotony  the  time  was  already 
passing  swiftly.  The  deck-steward  seemed  hardly  to 
have  been  round  with  tea  and  bouillon,  and  he  had 
not  yet  gathered  up  all  the  empty  cups,  when  the  horn 
for  lunch  sounded.  It  was  the  youngest  of  the  table- 
stewards  who  gave  the  summons  to  meals;  and  when 
ever  the  pretty  boy  appeared  with  his  bugle,  funny 
passengers  gathered  round  him  to  make  him  laugh, 
and  stop  him  from  winding  it.  His  part  of  the  joke 
was  to  fulfill  his  duty  with  gravity,  and  only  to  give 
way  to  a  smile  of  triumph  as  he  walked  off. 


XL 

AT  lunch,  in  the  faded  excitement  of  their  first 
meeting,  the  people  at  the  Marches'  table  did  not 
renew  the  premature  intimacy  of  their  breakfast  talk. 
Mrs.  March  went  to  lie  down  in  her  berth  afterwards, 
and  March  went  on  deck  without  her.  He  began  to 
walk  to  and  from  the  barrier  between  the  first  and  sec 
ond  cabin  promenades ;  lingering  near  it,  and  musing 
pensively,  for  some  of  the  people  beyond  it  looked  as 
intelligent  and  as  socially  acceptable,  even  to  their 
clothes,  as  their  pecuniary  betters  of  the  saloon. 

There  were  two  women,  a  mother  and  daughter, 
whom  he  fancied  to  be  teachers,  by  their  looks,  going 
out  for  a  little  rest,  or  perhaps  for  a  little  further 
study  to  fit  them  more  perfectly  for  their  work.  They 
gazed  wistfully  across  at  him  whenever  he  came  up  to 
the  barrier ;  and  he  feigned  a  conversation  with  them 
and  tried  to  convince  them  that  the  stamp  of  inferior 
ity  which  their  poverty  put  upon  them  was  just,  or  if 
not  just,  then  inevitable.  He  argued  with  them  that 
the  sort  of  barrier  which  here  prevented  their  being 
friends  with  him,  if  they  wished  it,  ran  invisibly 
through  society  everywhere ;  but  he  felt  ashamed  be- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  63 

fore  their  kind,  patient,  intelligent  faces,  and  found 
himself  wishing  to  excuse  the  fact  he  was  defending. 
Was  it  any  worse,  he  asked  them,  than  their  not  be 
ing  invited  to  the  entertainments  of  people  in  upper 
Fifth  Avenue  ?  He  made  them  own  that  if  they  were 
let  across  that  barrier  the  whole  second  cabin  would 
have  a  logical  right  to  follow ;  and  they  were  silenced. 
But  they  continued  to  gaze  at  him  with  their  sincere, 
gentle  eyes  whenever  he  returned  to  the  barrier  in  his 
walk,  till  he  could  bear  it  no  longer,  and  strolled  off 
toward  the  steerage. 

There  was  more  reason  why  the  passengers  there 
should  be  penned  into  a  little  space  of  their  own  in 
the  sort  of  pit  made  by  the  narrowing  deck  at  the 
bow.  They  seemed  to  be  all  foreigners,  and  if  any 
had  made  their  fortunes  in  our  country  they  were  hid 
ing  their  prosperity  in  the  return  to  their  own.  They 
could  hardly  have  come  to  us  more  shabby  and  squalid 
than  they  were  going  away;  but  he  thought  their 
average  less  apathetic  than  that  of  the  saloon  passen 
gers,  as  he  leaned  over  the  rail  and  looked  down  at 
them.  Some  one  had  brought  out  an  electric  battery, 
and  the  lumpish  boys  and  slattern  girls  were  shouting 
and  laughing  as  they  writhed  with  the  current.  A 
young  mother  seated  flat  on  the  deck,  with  her  bare 
feet  stuck  out,  inattentively  nursed  her  babe,  while 
she  laughed  and  shouted  with  the  rest ;  a  man  with 
his  head  tied  in  a  shawl  walked  about  the  pen  and 
smiled  grotesquely  with  the  well  side  of  his  toothache- 
swollen  face.  The  owner  of  the  battery  carried  it 
away,  and  a  group  of  little  children,  with  blue  eyes 


64  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

and  yellow  hair,  gathered  in  the  space  he  had  left, 
and  looked  up  at  a  passenger  near  March  who  was 
eating  some  plums  and  cherries  which  he  had  brought 
from  the  luncheon  table.  He  began  to  throw  the 
fruit  down  to  them,  and  the  children  scrambled  for  it. 

An  elderly  man,  with  a  thin,  grave,  aquiline  face, 
said,  "  I  shouldn't  want  a  child  of  mine  down  there." 

"  No,"  March  responded,  "  it  isn't  quite  what  one 
would  choose  for  one's  own.  It's  astonishing,  though, 
how  we  reconcile  ourselves  to  it  in  the  case  of  others." 

"  I  suppose  it's  something  we'll  have  to  get  used 
to  on  the  other  side,"  suggested  the  stranger. 

"  Well,"  answered  March,  "  you  have  some  oppor 
tunities  to  get  used  to  it  on  this  side,  if  you  happen 
to  live  in  New  York,"  and  he  went  on  to  speak  of  the 
raggedness  which  often  penetrated  the  frontier  of 
comfort  where  he  lived  in  Stuyvesant  Square,  and 
which  seemed  as  glad  of  alms  in  food  or  money  as 
this  poverty  of  the  steerage. 

The  other  listened  restively  like  a  man  whose  ideals 
are  disturbed.  "  I  don't  believe  I  should  like  to  live 
in  New  York,  much,"  he  said,  and  March  fancied  that 
he  wished  to  be  asked  where  he  did  live.  It  appeared 
•that  he  lived  in  Ohio,  and  he  named  his  town ;  he  did 
not  brag  of  it,  but  he  said  it  suited  him.  He  added 
that  he  had  never  expected  to  go  to  Europe,  but  that 
he  had  begun  to  run  down  lately,  and  his  doctor 
thought  he  had  better  go  out  and  try  Carlsbad. 

March  said,  to  invite  his  further  confidence,  that 
this  was  exactly  his  own  case.  The  Ohio  man  met 
the  overture  from  a  common  invalidism  as  if  it  de- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  65 

tracted  from  his  own  distinction ;  and  he  turned  to 
speak  of  the  difficulty  he  had  in  arranging  his  affairs 
for  leaving  home.  His  heart  opened  a  little  with  the 
word,  and  he  said  how  comfortable  he  and  his  wife 
were  in  their  house,  and  how  much  they  both  hated 
to  shut  it  up.  When  March  offered  him  his  card,  he 
said  he  had  none  of  his  own  with  him,  but  that  his 
name  was  Eltwin.  He  betrayed  a  simple  wish  to 
have  March  realize  the  local  importance  he  had  left 
behind  him ;  and  it  was  not  hard  to  comply ;  March 
saw  a  Grand  Army  button  in  the  lapel  of  his  coat,  and 
he  knew  that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  a  veteran. 

He  tried  to  guess  his  rank,  in  telling  his  wife  about 
him,  when  he  went  down  to  find  her  just  before  din 
ner,  but  he  ended  with  a  certain  sense  of  affliction. 
"  There  are  too  many  elderly  invalids  on  this  ship.  I 
knock  against  people  of  my  own  age  everywhere. 
Why  aren't  your  youthful  lovers  more  in  evidence,  my 
dear  ?  I  don't  believe  they  are  lovers,  and  I  begin  to 
doulbt  if  they're  young  even." 

"  It  wasn't  very  satisfactory  at  lunch,  certainly," 
she  owned.  "  But  I  know  it  will  be  different  at  din 
ner."  She  was  putting  herself  together  after  a  nap 
that  had  made  up  for  the  lost  sleep  of  the  night  be 
fore.  "  I  want  you  to  look  very  nice,  dear.  Shall 
you  dress  for  dinner  ?  "  she  asked  her  husband's  image 
in  the  state-room  glass  which  she  was  preoccupying. 

"  I  shall  dress  in  my  pea-jacket  and  sea-boots,"  it 
answered. 

"  I  have  heard  that  they  always  dress  for  dinner  on 
the  big  Cunard  and  White  Star  boats,  when  it's  good 
E 


66  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

weather,"  she  went  on,  placidly.  "  I  shouldn't  want 
those  people  to  think  you  were  not  up  in  the  conven 
ances." 

They  both  knew  that  she  meant  the  reticent  father 
and  daughter,  and  March  flung  out,  "  I  shouldn't  want 
them  to  think  you  weren't.  There's  such  a  thing  as 
overdoing." 

She  attacked  him  at  another  point.  "What  has 
annoyed  you  ?  What  else  have  you  been  doing  ? " 

"  Nothing.  I've  been  reading  most  of  the  after 
noon." 

"  The  Maiden  Knight  ?  " 

This  was  the  book  which  nearly  everybody  had 
brought  on  board.  It  was  just  out,  and  had  caught 
an  instant  favor,  which  swelled  later  to  a  tidal  wave. 
It  depicted  a  heroic  girl  in  every  trying  circumstance 
of  mediaeval  life,  and  gratified  the  perennial  passion 
of  both  sexes  for  historical  romance,  while  it  flattered 
woman's  instinct  of  superiority  by  the  celebration  of 
her  unintermitted  triumphs,  ending  in  a  preposterous 
and  wholly  superfluous  self-sacrifice. 

March  laughed  for  pleasure  in  her  guess,  and  she 
pursued,  "  I  suppose  you  didn't  waste  time  looking  if 
anybody  had  brought  the  last  copy  of  Every  Other 
Week?" 

"  Yes,  I  did ;  and  I  found  the  one  you  had  left  in 
your  steamer  chair — for  advertising  purposes,  proba 
bly." 

"  Mr.  Burnamy  has  another,"  she  said.  "  I  saw  it 
sticking  out  of  his  pocket  this  morning." 

"  Oh,  yes.      He  told  me  he  had  got  it  on  the  train 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  67 

* 

from  Chicago  to  see  if  it  had  his  poem  in  it.  He's 
an  ingenuous  soul — in  some  ways." 

"  Well,  that  is  the  very  reason  why  you  ought  to 
find  out  whether  the  men  are  going  to  dress,  and  let 
him  know.  He  would  never  think  of  it  himself." 

"  Neither  would  I,"  said  her  husband. 

"  Very  well,  if  you  wish  to  spoil  his  chance  at  the 
outset,"  she  sighed. 

She  did  not  quite  know  whether  to  be  glad  or  not 
that  the  men  were  all  in  sacks  and  cutaways  at  dinner  ; 
it  saved  her  from  shame  for  her  husband  and  Mr. 
Burnamy;  but  it  put  her  in  the  wrong.  Every  one 
talked ;  even  the  father  and  daughter  talked  with  each 
other,  and  at  one  moment  Mrs.  March  could  not  be 
quite  sure  that  the  daughter  had  not  looked  at  her 
when  she  spoke.  She  could  not  be  mistaken  in  the 
remark  which  the  father  addressed  to  Burnamy, 
though  it  led  to  nothing. 


XII. 

THE  dinner  was  uncommonly  good,  as  the  first  din 
ner  out  is  apt  to  be;  and  it  went  gayly  on  from  soup 
to  fruit,  which  was  of  the  American  abundance  and 
variety,  and  as  yet  not  of  the  veteran  freshness  im 
parted  by  the  ice-closet.  Everybody  was  eating  it, 
when  by  a  common  consciousness  they  were  aware  of 
alien  witnesses.  They  looked  up  as  by  a  single  im 
pulse,  and  saw  at  the  port  the  gaunt  face  of  a  steerage 
passenger  staring  down  upon  their  luxury;  he  held 
on  his  arm  a  child  that  shared  his  regard  with  yet 
hungrier  eyes.  A  boy's  nose  showed  itself  as  if  tip 
toed  to  the  height  of  the  man's  elbow ;  a  young  girl 
peered  over  his  other  arm. 

The  passengers  glanced  at  one  another;  the  two 
table-stewards,  with  their  napkins  in  their  hands, 
smiled  vaguely,  and  made  some  indefinite  movements. 

The  bachelor  at  the  head  of  the  table  broke  the 
spell.  "  I'm  glad  it  didn't  begin  with  the  Little  Neck 
clams ! " 

"  Probably  they  only  let  those  people  come  for  the 
dessert,"  March  suggested. 

The  widow  now  followed  the  direction  of  the  other 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  69 

eyes,  and  looked  up  over  her  shoulder ;  she  gave  a 
little  cry,  and  shrank  down.  The  young  bride  made 
her  petted  mouth,  in  appeal  to  the  company ;  her 
husband  looked  severe,  as  if  he  were  going  to  do 
something,  but  refrained,  not  to  make  a  scene.  The 
reticent  father  threw  one  of  his  staccato  glances  at 
the  port,  and  Mrs.  March  was  sure  that  she  saw  the 
daughter  steal  a  look  at  Burnamy. 

The  young  fellow  laughed.  "  I  don't  suppose 
there's  anything  to  be  done  about  it,  unless  we  pass 
out  a  plate." 

Mr.  Kenby  shook  his  head.  "  It  wouldn't  do.  We 
might  send  for  the  captain.  Or  the  chief  steward." 

The  faces  at  the  port  vanished.  At  other  ports 
profiles  passed  and  repassed,  as  if  the  steerage  pass 
engers  had  their  promenade  under  them,  but  they 
paused  no  more. 

The  Marches  went  up  to  their  steamer  chairs,  and 
from  her  exasperated  nerves  Mrs.  March  denounced 
the  arrangement  of  the  ship  which  had  made  such  a 
cruel  thing  possible. 

"  Oh,"  he  mocked,  "  they  had  probably  had  a  good 
substantial  meal  of  their  own,  and  the  scene  of  our 
banquet  was  of  the  quality  of  a  picture,  a  purely 
sesthetic  treat.  But  supposing  it  wasn't,  we're  doing 
something  like  it  every  day  and  every  moment  of  our 
lives.  The  Norumbia  is  a  piece  of  the  whole  world's 
civilization  set  afloat,  and  passing  from  shore  to  shore 
with  unchanged  classes  and  conditions.  A  ship's 
merely  a  small  stage,  where  we're  brought  to  close 
quarters  with  the  daily  drama  of  humanity." 


70  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

"  Well,  then,"  she  protested,  "  I  don't  like  being 
brought  to  close  quarters  with  the  daily  drama  of  hu 
manity,  as  you  call  it.  And  I  don't  believe  that  the 
large  English  ships  are  built  so  that  the  steerage  pas 
sengers  can  stare  in  at  the  saloon  windows  while  one 
is  eating ;  and  I'm  sorry  we  came  on  the  Norumbia" 

"  Ah,  you  think  the  Norumbia  doesn't  hide  any 
thing,"  he  began,  and  he  was  going  to  speak  of  the 
men  in  the  furnace  pits  of  the  steamer,  how  they  fed 
the  fires  in  a  welding  heat,  and  as  if  they  had  perished 
in  it  crept  out  on  the  forecastle  like  blanched  phan 
tasms  of  toil ;  but  she  interposed  in  time. 

"  If  there's  anything  worse,  for  pity's  sake  don't 
tell  me,"  she  entreated,  and  he  forebore. 

He  sat  thinking  how  once  the  world  had  not  seemed 
to  have  even  death  in  it,  and  then  how  as  he  had 
grown  older  death  had  come  into  it  more  and  more, 
and  suffering  was  lurking  everywhere,  and  could 
hardly  be  kept  out  of  sight.  He  wondered  if  that 
young  Burnamy  now  saw  the  world  as  he  used  to  see 
it,  a  place  for  making  verse  and  making  love,  and  full 
of  beauty  of  all  kinds  waiting  to  be  fitted  with  phrases. 
He  had  lived  a  happy  life ;  Burnamy  would  be  lucky 
if  he  should  live  one  half  as  happy;  and  yet  if  he 
could  show  him  his  whole  happy  life,  just  as  it  had 
truly  been,  must  not  the  young  man  shrink  from  such 
a  picture  of  his  future  ? 

"  Say  something,"  said  his  wife.  "  What  are  you 
thinking  about  ? " 

"  Oh,  Burnamy,"  he  answered,  honestly  enough. 

"  I  was  thinking  about  the  children,"  she  said.    "  I 


THEIB   SILVER   WEDDING  JOURNEY.  71 

am  glad  Bella  didn't  try  to  come  from  Chicago  to  see 
us  off ;  it  would  have  been  too  silly ;  she  is  getting  to 
be  very  sensible.  I  hope  Tom  won't  take  the  covers 
off  the  furniture  when  he  has  the  fellows  in  to  see 
him." 

"  Well,  I  want  him  to  get  all  the  comfort  he  can 
out  of  the  place,  even  if  the  moths  eat  up  every  stick 
of  furniture." 

"  Yes,  so  do  I.  And  of  course  you're  wishing  that 
you  were  there  with  him  !  "  March  laughed  guiltily. 
"  Well,  perhaps  it  was  a  crazy  thing  for  us  to  start 
off  alone  for  Europe,  at  our  age." 

"  Nothing  of  the  kind,"  he  retorted  in  the  necessity 
he  perceived  for  staying  her  drooping  spirits.  "  I 
wouldn't  be  anywhere  else  on  any  account.  Isn't  it 
perfectly  delicious?  It  puts  me  in  mind  of  that  night 
on  the  Lake  Ontario  boat,  when  we  were  starting  for 
Montreal.  There  was  the  same  sort  of  red  sunset, 
and  the  air  wasn't  a  bit  softer  than  this." 

He  spoke  of  a  night  on  their  wedding-journey  when 
they  were  still  new  enough  from  Europe  to  be  com 
paring  everything  at  home  with  things  there. 

"  Well,  perhaps  we  shall  get  into  the  spirit  of  it 
again,"  she  said,  and  they  talked  a  long  time  of  the 
past. 

All  the  mechanical  noises  were  muffled  in  the  dull 
air,  and  the  wash  of  the  ship's  course  through  the 
waveless  sea  made  itself  pleasantly  heard.  In  the 
offing  a  steamer  homeward  bound  swam  smoothly  by, 
so  close  that  her  lights  outlined  her  to  the  eye ;  she 
sent  up  some  signal  rockets  that  soared  against  the 


72  THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

purple  heaven  in  green  and  crimson,  and  spoke  to  the 
Norumbia  in  the  mysterious  mute  phrases  of  ships 
that  meet  in  the  dark. 

Mrs.  March  wondered  what  had  become  of  Burna- 
my ;  the  promenades  were  much  freer  now  than  they 
had  been  since  the  ship  sailed ;  when  she  rose  to  go 
below,  she  caught  sight  of  Burnamy  walking  the  deck 
transversely  with  some  lady.  She  clutched  her  hus 
band's  arm  and  stayed  him  in  rich  conjecture. 

"  Do  you  suppose  he  can  have  got  her  to  walking 
with  him  already  ? " 

*  They  waited  till  Burnamy  and  his  companion  came 
in  sight  again.  She  was  tilting  forward,  and  turning 
from  the  waist,  now  to  him  and  now  from  him. 

"  No ;  it's  that  pivotal  girl,"  said  March ;  and  his 
wife  said,  "  Well,  I'm  glad  he  won't  be  put  down  by 
them." 

In  the  music-room  sat  the  people  she  meant,  and  at 
the  instant  she  passed  on  down  the  stairs,  the  daugh 
ter  was  saying  to  the  father,  "  I  don't  see  why  you 
didn't  tell  me  sooner,  papa." 

"  It  was  such  an  unimportant  matter  that  I  didn't 
think  to  mention  it.  He  offered  it,  and  I  took  it; 
that  was  all.  What  difference  could  it  have  made  to 
you  ? " 

"  None.  But  one  doesn't  like  to  do  any  one  an 
injustice." 

"  I  didn't  know  you  were  thinking  anything  about 
it." 

"  No,  of  course  not." 


XIII. 

THE  voyage  of  the  NorumUa  was  one  of  those 
which  passengers  say  they  have  never  seen  anything 
like,  though  for  the  first  two  or  three  days  out  neither 
the  doctor  nor  the  deck-steward  could  be  got  to 
prophesy  when  the  ship  would  be  in.  There  was 
only  a  day  or  two  when  it  could  really  be  called  rough, 
and  the  sea-sickness  was  confined  to  those  who  seemed 
wilful  sufferers ;  they  lay  on  the  cushioned  benching 
around  the  stairs-landing,  and  subsisted  on  biscuit  and 
beef  tea  without  qualifying  the  monotonous  well-being 
of  the  other  passengers,  who  passed  without  noticing 
them. 

The  second  morning  there  was  rain,  and  the  air 
freshened,  but  the  leaden  sea  lay  level  as  before. 
The  sun  shone  in  the  afternoon  ;  with  the  sunset  the 
fog  came  thick  and  white ;  the  ship  lowed  dismally 
through  the  night ;  from  the  dense  folds  of  the  mist 
answering  noises  called  back  to  her.  Just  before 
dark  two  men  in  a  dory  shouted  up  to  her  close  under 
her  bows,  and  then  melted  out  of  sight;  when  the 
dark  fell  the  lights  of  fishing-schooners  were  seen,  and 
their  bells  pealed ;  once  loud  cries  from  a  vessel  near 


74  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

at  hand  made  themselves  heard.  Some  people  in  the 
dining-saloon  sang  hymns;  the  smoking-room  was 
dense  with  cigar  fumes,  and  the  card-players  dealt 
their  hands  in  an  atmosphere  emulous  of  the  fog  with 
out. 

The  Norumbia  was  off  the  Banks,  and  the  second 
day  of  fog  was  cold  as  if  icebergs  were  haunting  the 
opaque  pallor  around  her.  In  the  ranks  of  steamer 
chairs  people  lay  like  mummies  in  their  dense  wrap 
pings  ;  in  the  music-room  the  little  children  of  travel 
discussed  the  different  lines  of  steamers  on  which  they 
had  crossed,  and  babes  of  five  and  seven  disputed 
about  the  motion  on  the  Cunarders  and  White  Stars ; 
their  nurses  tried  in  vain  to  still  them  in  behalf  of 
older  passengers  trying  to  write  letters  there. 

By  the  next  morning  the  ship  had  run  out  of  the 
fog ;  and  people  who  could  keep  their  feet  said  they 
were  glad  of  the  greater  motion  which  they  found 
beyond  the  Banks.  They  now  talked  of  the  heat  of 
the  first  days  out,  and  how  much  they  had  suffered ; 
some  who  had  passed  the  night  on  board  before  sail 
ing  tried  to  impart  a  sense  of  their  misery  in  trying 
to  sleep. 

A  day  or  two  later  a  storm  struck  the  ship,  and  the 
sailors  stretched  canvas  along  the  weather  promenade 
and  put  up  a  sheathing  of  boards  across  the  bow  end 
to  keep  off  the  rain.  Yet  a  day  or  two  more  and  the 
sea  had  fallen  again  and  there  was  dancing  on  the 
widest  space  of  the  lee  promenade. 

The  little  events  of  the  sea  outside  the  steamer  of 
fered  themselves  in  their  poor  variety.  Once  a  ship 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  75 

in  the  offing,  with  all  its  square  sails  set,  lifted  them 
like  three  white  towers  from  the  deep.  On  the  rim 
of  the  ocean  the  length  of  some  westward  liner  blocked 
itself  out  against  the  horizon,  and  swiftly  trailed  its 
smoke  out  of  sight.  A  few  tramp  steamers,  lounging 
and  lunging  through  the  trough  of  the  sea,  were  over 
taken  and  left  behind ;  an  old  brigantine  passed  so 
close  that  her  rusty  iron  sides  showed  plain,  and  one 
could  discern  the  faces  of  the  people  on  board. 

The  steamer  was  oftenest  without  the  sign  of  any 
life  beyond  her.  One  day  a  small  bird  beat  the  air 
with  its  little  wings,  under  the  roof  of  the  promenade, 
and  then  flittered  from  sight  over  the  surface  of  the 
waste  ;  a  school  of  porpoises,  stiff  and  wooden  in  their 
rise,  plunged  clumsily  from  wave  to  wave.  The  deep 
itself  had  sometimes  the  unreality,  the  artificiality  of 
the  canvas  sea  of  the  theatre.  Commonly  it  was  livid 
and  cold  in  color;  but  there  was  a  morning  when  it 
was  delicately  misted,  and  where  the  mist  left  it  clear, 
it  was  blue  and  exquisitely  iridescent  under  the  pale 
sun ;  the  wrinkled  waves  were  finely  pitted  by  the 
falling  spray.  These  were  rare  moments  ;  mostly, 
when  it  was  not  like  painted  canvas,  is  was  hard  like 
black  rock,  with  surfaces  of  smooth  cleavage.  Where 
it  met  the  sky  it  lay  flat  and  motionless,  or  in  the 
rougher  weather  carved  itself  along  the  horizon  in 
successions  of  surges. 

If  the  sun  rose  clear,  it  was  overcast  in  a  few  hours ; 
then  the  clouds  broke  and  let  a  little  sunshine  through, 
to  close  again  before  the  dim  evening  thickened  over 
the  waters.  Sometimes  the  moon  looked  through  the 


76  THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

ragged  curtain  of  vapors ;  one  night  it  seemed  to  shine 
till  morning,  and  shook  a  path  of  quicksilver  from  the 
horizon  to  the  ship.  Through  every  change,  after  she 
had  left  the  fog  behind,  the  steamer  drove  on  with 
the  pulse  of  her  engines  (that  stopped  no  more  than 
a  man's  heart  stops)  in  a  course  which  had  nothing  to 
mark  it  but  the  spread  of  the  furrows  from  her  sides, 
and  the  wake  that  foamed  from  her  stern  to  the  west 
ern  verge  of  the  sea. 

The  life  of  the  ship,  like  the  life  of  the  sea,  was  a 
sodden  monotony,  with  certain  events  which  were  part 
of  the  monotony.  In  the  morning  the  little  steward's 
bugle  called  the  passengers  from  their  dreams,  and 
half  an  hour  later  called  them  to  their  breakfast,  after 
such  as  chose  had  been  served  with  coffee  by  their 
bedroom-stewards.  Then  they  went  on  deck,  where 
they  read,  or  dozed  in  their  chairs,  or  walked  up  and 
down,  or  stood  in  the  way  of  those  who  were  walking ; 
or  played  shuffleboard  and  ring-toss ;  or  smoked,  and 
drank  whiskey  and  aerated  waters  over  their  cards  and 
papers  in  the  smoking-room ;  or  wrote  letters  in  the 
saloon  or  the  music-room.  At  eleven  o'clock  they 
spoiled  their  appetites  for  lunch  with  tea  or  bouillon 
to  the  music  of  a  band  of  second-cabin  stewards ;  at 
one,  a  single  blast  of  the  bugle  called  them  to  lunch, 
where  they  glutted  themselves  to  the  torpor  from 
which  they  afterwards  drowsed  in  their  berths  or 
chairs.  They  did  the  same  things  in  the  afternoon 
that  they  had  done  in  the  forenoon ;  and  at  four 
o'clock  the  deck-stewards  came  round  with  their  cups 
and  saucers,  and  their  plates  of  sandwiches,  again  to 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  77 

the  music  of  the  band.  There  were  two  bugle-calls 
for  dinner,  and  after  dinner  some  went  early  to  bed, 
and  some  sat  up  late  and  had  grills  and  toast.  At 
twelve  the  lights  were  put  out  in  the  saloons  and  the 
smoking-rooms. 

There  were  various  smells  which  stored  themselves 
up  in  the  consciousness  to  remain  lastingly  relative  to 
certain  moments  and  places:  a  whiff  of  whiskey  and 
tobacco  that  exhaled  from  the  door  of  the  smoking- 
room  ;  the  odor  of  oil  and  steam  rising  from  the  open 
skylights  over  the  engine-room ;  the  scent  of  stale 
bread  about  the  doors  of  the  dining-saloon. 

The  life  was  like  the  life  at  a  sea-side  hotel,  only 
more  monotonous.  .The  walking  was  limited ;  the 
talk  was  the  tentative  talk  of  people  aware  that  there 
was  no  refuge  if  they  got  tired  of  one  another.  The 
flirting  itself,  such  as  there  was  of  it,  must  be  carried 
on  in  the  glare  of  the  pervasive  publicity  ;  it  must  be 
crude  and  bold,  or  not  be  at  all. 

There  seemed  to  be  very  little  of  it.  There  were 
not  many  young  people  on  board  of  saloon  quality, 
and  these  were  mostly  girls.  The  young  men  were 
mainly  of  the  smoking-room  sort ;  they  seldom  risked 
themselves  among  the  steamer  chairs.  It  was  gayer 
in  the  second  cabin,  and  gayer  yet  in  the  steerage, 
where  robuster  emotions  were  operated  by  the  accor 
dion.  The  passengers  there  danced  to  its  music ;  they 
sang  to  it  and  laughed  to  it  unabashed  under  the  eyes 
of  the  first-cabin  witnesses  clustered  along  the  rail 
above  the  pit  where  they  took  their  rude  pleasures. 

With  March  it  came  to  his  spending  many  hours 


78  THEIR   SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

of  each  long,  swift  day  in  his  berth  with  a  book  under 
the  convenient  electric  light.  He  was  safe  there  from 
the  acquaintances  which  constantly  formed  themselves 
only  to  fall  into  disintegration,  and  cling  to  him  after 
wards  as  inorganic  particles  of  weather-guessing,  and 
smoking-room  gossip  about  the  ship's  run. 

In  the  earliest  hours  of  the  voyage  he  thought  that 
he  saw  some  faces  of  the  great  world,  the  world  of 
wealth  and  fashion ;  but  these  afterward  vanished,  and 
left  him  to  wonder  where  they  hid  themselves.  He 
did  not  meet  them  even  in  going  to  and  from  his 
meals;  he  could  only  imagine  them  served  in  those 
palatial  state-rooms  whose  interiors  the  stewards  now 
and  then  rather  obtruded  upon  the  public.  There 
were  people  whom  he  encountered  in  the  promenades 
when  he  got  up  for  the  sunrise,  and  whom  he  never 
saw  at  other  times ;  at  midnight  he  met  men  prowling 
in  the  dark  whom  he  never  met  by  day.  But  none 
of  these  were  people  of  the  great  world.  Before  six 
o'clock  they  were  sometimes  second-cabin  passengers, 
whose  barrier  was  then  lifted  for  a  little  while  to  give 
them  the  freedom  of  the  saloon  promenade. 

From  time  to  time  he  thought  he  would  look  up  his 
Ohioan,  and  revive  from  a  closer  study  of  him  his 
interest  in  the  rare  American  who  had  never  been  to 
Europe.  But  he  kept  with  his  elderly  wife,  who  had 
the  effect  of  withholding  him  from  March's  advances. 
Young  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Leffers  threw  off  more  and  more 
their  disguise  of  a  long-married  pair,  and  became 
frankly  bride  and  groom.  They  seldom  talked  with 
any  one  else,  except  at  table ;  they  walked  up  and 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  79 

down  together,  smiling  into  each  others  faces ;  they 
sat  side  by  side  in  their  steamer  chairs ;  one  shawl 
covered  them  both,  and  there  was  reason  to  believe 
that  they  were  holding  each  other's  hands  under  it. 

Mrs.  Adding  often  tool^  the  chair  beside  Mrs.  March 
when  her  husband  was  straying  about  the  ship  or 
reading  in  his  berth ;  and  the  two  ladies  must  have 
exchanged  autobiographies,  for  Mrs.  March  was  able 
to  tell  him  just  how  long  Mrs.  Adding  had  been  a 
widow,  what  her  husband  died  of,  and  what  had  been 
done  to  save  him ;  how  she  was  now  perfectly  wrapt 
up  in  her  boy,  and  was  taking  him  abroad,  with  some 
notion  of  going  to  Switzerland,  after  the  summer's 
travel,  and  settling  down  with  him  at  school  there. 
She  and  Mrs.  March  became  great  friends ;  and  Rose, 
as  his  mother  called  him,  attached  himself  reverently 
to  March,  not  only  as  a  celebrity  of  the  first  grade  in 
his  quality  of  editor  of  Every  Other  Week,  but  as  a 
sage  of  wisdom  and  goodness,  with  whom  he  must  not 
lose  the  chance  of  counsel  upon  almost  every  hypoth 
esis  and  exigency  of  life. 

March  could  not  bring  himself  to  place  Burnamy 
quite  where  he  belonged  in  contemporary  literature, 
when  Rose  put  him  very  high  in  virtue  of  the  poem 
which  he  heard  Burnamy  was  going  to  have  printed 
in  Every  Other  Week,  and  of  the  book  which  he  was 
going  to  have  published ;  and  he  let  the  boy  bring  to 
the  young  fellow  the  flattery  which  can  come  to  any 
author  but  once,  in  the  first  request  for  his  autograph 
that  Burnamy  confessed  to  have  had.  They  were  so 
near  in  age,  though  they  were  ten  years  apart,  that 


80  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

Rose  stood  much  more  in  awe  of  Burnamy  than  of 
others  much  more  his  seniors.  He  was  often  in  the 
company  of  Kenby,  whom  he  valued  next  to  March 
as  a  person  acquainted  with  men ;  he  consulted  March 
upon  Kenby's  practice  of  always  taking  up  the  lan 
guage  of  the  country  he  visited,  if  it  were  only  for  a 
fortnight ;  and  he  conceived  a  higher  opinion  of  him 
from  March's  approval. 

Burnamy  was  most  with  Mrs.  March,  who  made  him 
talk  about  himself  when  he  supposed  he  was  talking 
about  literature,  in  the  hope  that  she  could  get  him 
to  talk  about  the  Triscoes ;  but  she  listened  in  vain  as 
he  poured  out  his  soul  in  theories  of  literary  art,  and 
in  histories  of  what  he  had  written  and  what  he  meant 
to  write.  When  he  passed  them  where  they  sat  to 
gether,  March  heard  the  young  fellow's  perpetually 
recurring  I,  I,  I,  my,  my,  my,  me,  me,  me  ;  and  smiled 
to  think  how  she  was  suffering  under  the  drip-drip  of 
his  innocent  egotism. 

She  bore  in  a  sort  of  scientific  patience  his  atten 
tions  to  the  pivotal  girl,  and  Miss  Triscoe's  indiffer 
ence  to  him,  in  which  a  less  penetrating  scrutiny 
could  have  detected  no  change  from  meal  to  meal.  It 
was  only  at  table  that  she  could  see  them  together,  or 
that  she  could  note  any  break  in  the  reserve  of  the 
father  and  daughter.  The  signs  of  this  were  so  fine 
that  when  she  reported  them  March  laughed  in  scorn 
ful  incredulity.  But  at  breakfast  the  third  day  out, 
the  Triscoes,  with  the  authority  of  people  accustomed 
to  social  consideration,  suddenly  turned  to  the 
Marches,  and  began  to  make  themselves  agreeable ; 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  81 

the  father  spoke  to  March  of  Every  Other  Week,  which 
he  seemed  to  know  of  in  its  relation  to  him  ;  and  the 
young  girl  addressed  herself  to  Mrs.  March's  motherly 
sense  not  the  less  acceptably  because  indirectly.  She 
spoke  of  going  out  with  her  father  for  an  indefinite 
time,  as  if  it  were  rather  his  wish  than  hers,  and  she 
made  some  inquiries  about  places  in  Germany ;  they 
had  never  been  in  Germany.  They  had  some  idea  of 
Dresden ;  but  the  idea  of  Dresden  with  its  American 
colony  seemed  rather  tiresome ;  and  did  Mrs.  March 
know  anything  about  Weimar  ? 

Mrs.  March  was  obliged  to  say  that  she  knew  noth 
ing  about  any  place  in  Germany ;  and  she  explained 
perhaps  too  fully  where  and  why  she  was  going  with 
her  husband.  She  fancied  a  Boston  note  in  that  scorn 
for  the  tiresomeness  of  Dresden  ;  but  the  girl's  style 
was  of  New  York  rather  than  of  Boston,  and  her  ac 
cent  was  not  quite  of  either  place.  Mrs.  March  began 
to  try  the  Triscoes  in  this  place  and  in  that,  to  divine 
them  and  to  class  them.  She  had  decided  from  the 
first  that  they  were  society  people,  but  they  were  cul 
tivated  beyond  the  average  of  the  few  swells  whom 
she  had  met ;  and  there  had  been  nothing  offensive  in 
their  manner  of  holding  themselves  aloof  from  the 
other  people  at  the  table ;  they  had  a  right  to  do  that 
if  they  chose. 

When  the  young  Lefferses  came  in  to  breakfast, 
the  talk  went  on  between  these  and  the  Marches ;  the 
Triscoes  presently  left  the  table,  and  Mrs.  March  rose 
soon  after,  eager  for  that  discussion  of  their  behavior 
which  March  knew  he  should  not  be  able  to  postpone. 


82  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

He  agreed  with  her  that  they  were  society  people,  but 
she  could  not  at  once  accept  his  theory  that  they  had 
themselves  been  the  objects  of  an  advance  from  them 
because  of  their  neutral  literary  quality,  through 
which  they  were  of  no  social  world,  but  potentially 
common  to  any.  Later  she  admitted  this,  as  she  said, 
for  the  sake  of  argument,  though  what  she  wanted  him 
to  see,  now,  was  that  this  was  all  a  step  of  the  girl's 
toward  finding  out  something  about  Burnamy. 

The  same  afternoon,  about  the  time  the  deck-stew 
ard  was  making  his  round  with  his  cups,  Miss  Triscoe 
abruptly  advanced  upon  her  from  a  neighboring  cor 
ner  of  the  bulkhead,  and  asked,  with  the  air  of  one 
accustomed  to  have  her  advances  gratefully  received, 
if  she  might  sit  by  her.  The  girl  took  March's  vacant 
chair,  where  she  had  her  cup  of  bouillon,  which  she 
continued  to  hold  untasted  in  her  hand  after  the  first 
sip.  Mrs.  March  did  the  same  with  hers,  and  at  the 
moment  she  had  got  very  tired  of  doing  it,  Burnamy 
came  by,  for  the  hundredth  time  that  day,  and  gave 
her  a  hundredth  bow  with  a  hundredth  smile.  He 
perceived  that  she  wished  to  get  rid  of  her  cup,  and 
he  sprang  to  her  relief. 

"  May  I  take  yours  too  ? "  he  said  very  passively  to 
Miss  Triscoe. 

"  You  are  very  good,"  she  answered,  and  gave  it. 

Mrs.  March  with  a  casual  air  suggested,  "  Do  you 
know  Mr.  Burnamy,  Miss  Triscoe? "  The  girl  said  a 
few  civil  things,  but  Burnamy  did  not  try  to  make 
talk  with  her  while  he  remained  a  few  moments  before 
Mrs.  March.  The  pivotal  girl  came  in  sight,  tilting 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  83 

and  turning  in  a  rare  moment  of  isolation  at  the  cor 
ner  of  the  music-room,  and  he  bowed  abruptly,  and 
hurried  off  to  join  her. 

Miss  Triscoe  did  not  linger ;  she  alleged  the  neces 
sity  of  looking  up  her  father,  and  went  away  with  a 
smile  so  friendly  that  Mrs.  March  might  easily  have 
construed  it  to  mean  that  no  blame  attached  itself  to 
her  in  Miss  Triscoe's  mind. 

"  Then  you  don't  feel  that  it  was  a  very  distinct 
success  ? "  her  husband  asked  on  his  return. 

"  Not  on  the  surface,"  she  said. 

"Better  let  ill  enough  alone,"  he  advised. 

She  did  not  heed  him.  "  All  the  same  she  cares 
for  him.  The  very  fact  that  she  was  so  cold  shows 
that." 

"  And  do  you  think  her  being  cold  will  make  him 
care  for  her  ?  " 

"  If  she  wants  it  to." 


XIV. 

Ax  dinner  that  day  the  question  of  The  Maiden 
Knight  was  debated  among  the  noises  and  silences  of 
the  band.  Young  Mrs.  Leifers  had  brought  the  book 
to  the  table  with  her ;  she  said  she  had  not  been  able 
to  lay  it  down  before  the  last  horn  sounded ;  in  fact 
she  could  have  been  seen  reading  it  to  her  husband 
where  he  sat  under  the  same  shawl,  the  whole  after 
noon.  "  Don't  you  think  it's  perfectly  fascinating," 
she  asked  Mrs.  Adding,  with  her  petted  mouth. 

"  Well,"  said  the  widow,  doubtfully,  "  it's  nearly  a 
week  since  I  read  it,  and  I've  had  time  to  get  over  the 
glow." 

"  Oh,  I  could  just  read  it  forever ! "  the  bride  ex 
claimed. 

"  I  like  a  book,"  said  her  husband,  "  that  takes  me 
out  of  myself.  I  don't  want  to  think  when  I'm  read 
ing." 

March  was  going  to  attack  this  ideal,  but  he  re 
flected  in  time  that  Mr.  LefTers  had  really  stated  his 
own  motive  in  reading.  He  compromised.  "  Well, 
I  like  the  author  to  do  my  thinking  for  me." 

"  Yes,"  said  the  other,  "that  is  what  I  mean." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  85 

"  The  question  is  whether  The  Maiden  Knight  fel 
low  does  it,"  said  Kenby,  taking  duck  and  pease  from 
the  steward  at  his  shoulder. 

"  What  my  wife  likes  in  it  is  to  see  what  one  wom 
an  can  do  and  be  single-handed,"  said  March. 

"  No,"  his  wife  corrected  him,  "  what  a  man  thinks 
she  can." 

"  I  suppose,"  said  Mr.  Triscoe,  unexpectedly,  "  that 
we're  like  the  English  in  our  habit  of  going  off  about 
a  book  like  a  train  of  powder." 

"  If  you'll  say  a  row  of  bricks,"  March  assented, 
"  I'll  agree  with  you.  It's  certainly  Anglo-Saxon  to 
fall  over  one  another  as  we  do,  when  we  get  going. 
It  would  be  interesting  to  know  just  how  much  liking 
there  is  in  the  popularity  of  a  given  book." 

"  It's  like  the  run  of  a  song,  isn't  it  ? "  Kenby  sug 
gested.  "  You  can't  stand  either,  when  it  reaches  a 
given  point." 

He  spoke  to  March  and  ignored  Triscoe,  who  had 
hitherto  ignored  the  rest  of  the  table. 

"  It's  very  curious,"  March  said.  "  The  book  or 
the  song  catches  a  mood,  or  feeds  a  craving,  and  when 
one  passes  or  the  other  is  glutted — " 

"The  discouraging  part  is,"  Triscoe  put  in,  still 
limiting  himself  to  the  Marches,  "that  it's  never  a 
question  of  real  taste.  The  things  that  go  down  with 
us  are  so  crude,  so  coarsely  spiced ;  they  tickle  such 
a  vulgar  palate —  Now  in  France,  for  instance,"  he 
suggested. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know,"  returned  the  editor.  "  After 
all,  we  eat  a  good  deal  of  bread,  and  we  drink  more 


86  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

pure  water  than  any  other  people.  Even  when  we 
drink  it  iced,  I  fancy  it  isn't  so  bad  as  absinthe." 

The  youag  bride  looked  at  him  gratefully,  but  she 
said,  "  If  we  can't  get  ice-water  in  Europe,  I  don't 
know  what  Mr.  Leffers  will  do,"  and  the  talk  threat 
ened  to  pass  among  the  ladies  into  a  comparison  of 
American  and  European  customs. 

Burnamy  could  not  bear  to  let  it.  "  I  don't  pre  • 
tend  to  be  very  well  up  in  French  literature,"  he  be 
gan,  "  but  I  think  such  a  book  as  The  Maiden  Knight 
isn't  such  a  bad  piece  of  work;  people  are  liking  a 
pretty  well  built  story  when  they  like  it.  Of  course 
it's  sentimental,  and  it  begs  the  question  a  good  deal ; 
but  it  imagines  something  heroic  in  character,  and  it 
makes  the  reader  imagine  it  too.  The  man  who  wrote 
that  book  may  be  a  donkey  half  the  time,  but  he's  a 
genius  the  other  half.  By-and-by  he'll  do  something 
— after  he's  come  to  see  that  his  Maiden  Knight  was 
a  fool — that  I  believe  even  you  won't  be  down  on, 
Mr.  March,  if  he  paints  a  heroic  type  as  powerfully 
as  he  does  in  this  book." 

He  spoke  with  the  authority  of  a  journalist,  and 
though  he  deferred  to  March  in  the  end,  he  deferred 
with  authority  still.  March  liked  him  for  coming  to 
the  defence  of  a  young  writer  whom  he  had  not  him 
self  learned  to  like  yet.  "  Yes,"  he  said,  "  if  he  has 
the  power  you  say,  and  can  keep  it  after  he  comes  to 
his  artistic  consciousness." 

Mrs.  Leffers,  as  if  she  thought  things  were  going 
her  way,  smiled ;  Rose  Adding  listened  with  shining 
eyes  expectantly  fixed  on  March  ;  his  mother  viewed 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  87 

his  rapture  with  tender  amusement.  The  steward  was 
at  Kenby's  shoulder  with  the  salad  and  his  entreating 
"  Bleace ! "  and  Triscoe  seemed  to  be  questioning 
whether  he  should  take  any  notice  of  Burnamy's  gen 
eral  disagreement.  He  said  at  last:  "I'm  afraid  we 
haven't  the  documents.  You  don't  seem  to  have  cared 
much  for  French  books,  and  I  haven't  read  The  Maid 
en  Knight."  He  added  to  March :  "  But  I  don't  de 
fend  absinthe.  Ice-water  is  better.  What  I  object 
to  is  our  indiscriminate  taste  both  for  raw  whiskey 
and  for  milk-and-water." 

No  one  took  up  the  question  again,  and  it  was 
Kenby  who  spoke  next.  "  The  doctor  thinks,  if  this 
weather  holds,  that  we  shall  be  into  Plymouth  Wed 
nesday  morning.  I  always  like  to  get  a  professional 
opinion  on  the  ship's  run." 

In  the  evening,  as  Mrs.  March  was  putting  away  in 
her  portfolio  the  journal-letter  which  she  was  writing 
to  send  back  from  Plymouth  to  her  children,  Miss 
Triscoe  drifted  t'o  the  place  where  she  sat  at  their 
table  in  the  dining-room  by  a  coincidence  which  they 
both  respected  as  casual. 

"  We  had  quite  a  literary  dinner,"  she  remarked, 
hovering  for  a  moment  near  the  chair  which  she  later 
sank  into.  "  It  must  have  made  you  feel  very  much 
at  home.  Or  perhaps  you're  so  tired  of  it  at  home 
that  you  don't  talk  about  books." 

"  We  always  talk  shop,  in  some  form  or  other,"  said 
Mrs.  March.  "  My  husband  never  tires  of  it.  A  good 
many  of  the  contributors  come  to  us,  you  know." 

"  It  must  be  delightful,"  said  the  girl.     She  added 


88  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

as  if  she  ought  to  excuse  herself  for  neglecting  an  ad 
vantage  that  might  have  been  hers  if  she  had  chosen, 
"  I'm  sorry  one  sees  so  little  of  the  artistic  and  literary 
set.  But  New  York  is  such  a  big  place." 

"  New  York  people  seem  to  be  very  fond  of  it," 
said  Mrs.  March.  "Those  who  have  always  lived 
there." 

"We  haven't  always  lived  there,"  said  the  girl. 
"  But  I  think  one  has  a  good  time  there — the  best 
time  a  girl  can  have.  It's  all  very  well  coming  over 
for  the  summer ;  one  has  to  spend  the  summer  some 
where.  Are  you  going  out  for  a  long  time  ? " 

"  Only  for  the  summer.     First  to  Carlsbad." 

"  Oh,  yes.  I  suppose  we  shall  travel  about  through 
Germany,  and  then  go  to  Paris.  We  always  do ;  my 
father  is  very  fond  of  it." 

"  You  must  know  it  very  well,"  said  Mrs.  March, 
aimlessly. 

"  I  was  born  there, — if  that  means  knowing  it.  I 
lived  there  till  I  was  eleven  years  old.  We  came 
home  after  my  mother  died." 

"  Oh  ! "  said  Mrs.  March. 

The  girl  did  not  go  further  into  her  family  history ; 
but  by  one  of  those  leaps  which  seem  to  women  as 
logical  as  other  progressions,  she  arrived  at  asking, 
"  Is  Mr.  Burnamy  one  of  the — contributors  ? " 

Mrs.  March  laughed.  "  He  is  going  to  be,  as  soon 
as  his  poem  is  printed." 

"  Poem  ? " 

"  Yes.     Mr.  March  thinks  it's  very  good." 

"  I  thought  he  spoke  very  nicely  about  The  Maid- 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  89 

en  Knight.  And  lie  has  been  very  nice  to  papa.  You 
know  they  have  the  same  room." 

"  I  think  Mr.  Burnamy  told  me,"  Mrs.  March  said. 

The  girl  went  on.  "  He  had  the  lower  berth,  and 
he  gave  it  up  to  papa ;  he's  done  everything  but  turn 
himself  out  of  doors." 

"  I'm  sure  he's  been  very  glad,"  Mrs.  March  vent 
ured  on  Burnamy's  behalf,  but  very  softly,  lest  if  she 
breathed  upon  these  budding  confidences  they  should 
shrink  and  wither  away. 

"  I  always  tell  papa  that  there's  no  country  like 
America  for  real  unselfishness ;  and  if  they're  all  like 
that,  in  Chicago  !  "  The  girl  stopped,  and  added  with 
a  laugh,  "  But  I'm  always  quarrelling  with  papa  about 
America." 

"  I  have  a  daughter  living  in  Chicago,"  said  Mrs. 
March,  alluringly. 

But  Miss  Triscoe  refused  the  bait,  either  because 
she  had  said  all  she  meant,  or  because  she  had  said 
all  she  would,  about  Chicago,  which  Mrs.  March  felt 
for  the  present  to  be  one  with  Burnamy.  She  gave 
another  of  her  leaps.  "  I  don't  see  why  people  are  so 
anxious  to  get  it  like  Europe,  at  home.  They  say 
that  there  was  a  time  when  there  were  no  chaperons 
— before  hoops,  you  know."  She  looked  suggestively 
at  Mrs.  March,  resting  one  slim  hand  on  the  table, 
and  controlling  her  skirt  with  the  other,  as  if  she  were 
getting  ready  to  rise  at  any  moment.  "  When  they 
used  to  sit  on  their  steps." 

"  It  was  very  pleasant  before  hoops — in  every  way," 
said  Mrs.  March.  "  I  was  young,  then  ;  and  I  lived 


90  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

in  Boston,  where  I  suppose  it  was  always  simpler  than 
in  New  York.  I  used  to  sit  on  our  steps.  It  was 
delightful  for  girls — the  freedom." 

"  I  wish  I  had  lived  before  hoops,"  said  Miss  Tris- 
coe. 

"  Well,  there  must  be  places  where  it's  before  hoops 
yet :  Seattle,  and  Portland,  Oregon,  for  all  I  know," 
Mrs.  March  suggested.  "  And  there  must  be  people 
in  that  epoch  everywhere." 

"  Like  that  young  lady  who  twists  and  turns  ? " 
said  Miss  Triscoe,  giving  first  one  side  of  her  face  and 
then  the  other.  "  They  have  a  good  time.  I  sup 
pose  if  Europe  came  to  us  in  one  way  it  had  to  come 
in  another.  If  it  came  in  galleries  and  all  that  sort 
of  thing,  it  had  to  come  in  chaperons.  You'll  think 
I'm  a  great  extremist,  Mrs.  March ;  but  sometimes  I 
wish  there  was  more  America  instead  of  less.  I  don't 
believe  it's  as  bad  as  people  say.  Does  Mr.  March," 
she  asked,  taking  hold  of  the  chair  with  one  hand,  to 
secure  her  footing  from  any  caprice  of  the  sea,  while 
she  gathered  her  skirt  more  firmly  into  the  other,  as 
she  rose,  "  does  he  think  that  America  is  going  all 
wrong?" 

"  All  wrong  ?     How  ?  " 

"  Oh,  in  politics,  don't  you  know.  And  govern 
ment,  and  all  that.  And  bribing.  And  the  lower 
classes  having  everything  their  own  way.  And  the 
horrid  newspapers.  And  everything  getting  so  expen 
sive  ;  and  no  regard  for  family,  or  anything  of  that 
kind." 

Mrs.  March    thought  she  saw  what   Miss  Triscoe 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  91 

meant,  but  she  answered,  still  cautiously,  "  I  don't 
believe  he  does  always.  Though  there  are  times  when 
he  is  very  much  disgusted.  Then  he  says  that  he  is 
getting  too  old — and  we  always  quarrel  about  that — 
to  see  things  as  they  really  are.  He  says  that  if  the 
world  had  been  going  the  way  that  people  over  fifty 
have  always  thought  it  was  going,  it  would  have  gone 
to  smash  in  the  time  of  the  anthropoidal  apes." 

"Oh,  yes:  Darwin,"  said  Miss  Triscoe,  vaguely. 
"  Well,  I'm  glad  he  doesn't  give  it  up.  I  didn't  know 
but  I  was  holding  out  just  because  I  had  argued  so 
much,  and  was  doing  it  out  of — opposition.  Good 
night  ! "  She  called  her  salutation  gayly  over  her 
shoulder,  and  Mrs.  March  watched  her  gliding  out  of 
the  saloon  with  a  graceful  tilt  to  humor  the  slight  roll 
of  the  ship,  and  a  little  lurch  to  correct  it,  once  or 
twice,  and  wondered  if  Burnamy  was  afraid  of  her ;  it 
seemed  to  her  that  if  she  were  a  young  man  she 
should  not  be  afraid  of  Miss  Triscoe. 

The  next  morning,  just  after  she  had  arranged  her 
self  in  her  steamer  chair,  he  approached  her,  bowing 
and  smiling,  with  the  first  of  his  many  bows  and 
smiles  for  the  day,  and  at  the  same  time  Miss  Triscoe 
came  toward  her  from  the  opposite  direction.  She 
nodded  brightly  to  him,  and  he  gave  her  a  bow  and 
smile  too ;  he  always  had  so  many  of  them  to  spare. 

"  Here  is  your  chair ! "  Mrs.  March  called  to  her, 
drawing  the  shawl  out  of  the  chair  next  her  own. 
"  Mr.  March  is  wandering  about  the  ship  somewhere." 

"  I'll  keep  it  for  him,"  said  Miss  Triscoe,  and  as 
Burnamy  offered  to  take  the  shawl  that  hung  in  the 


92  THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

hollow  of  her  arm,  she  let  it  slip  into  his  hand  with 
an  "  Oh,  thank  you,"  which  seemed  also  a  permission 
for  him  to  wrap  it  about  her  in  the  chair. 

He  stood  talking  before  the  ladies,  but  he  looked 
up  and  down  the  promenade.  The  pivotal  girl  showed 
herself  at  the  corner  of  the  music-room,  as  she  had 
done  the  day  before.  At  first  she  revolved  there  as 
if  she  were  shedding  her  light  on  some  one  hidden 
round  the  corner ;  then  she  moved  a  few  paces  farther 
out  and  showed  herself  more  obviously  alone.  Clearly 
she  was  there  for  Burnamy  to  come  and  walk  with 
her ;  Mrs.  March  could  see  that,  and  she  felt  that  Miss 
Triscoe  saw  it  too.  She  waited  for  her  to  dismiss  him 
to  his  flirtation ;  but  Miss  Triscoe  kept  chatting  on,  and 
he  kept  answering,  and  making  no  motion  to  get  away. 
Mrs.  March  began  to  be  as  sorry  for  her  as  she  was 
ashamed  for  him.  Then  she  heard  him  saying, 
"  Would  you  like  a  turn  or  two  ? "  and  Miss  Triscoe 
answering,  "  Why,  yes,  thank  you,"  and  promptly 
getting  out  of  her  chair  as  if  the  pains  they  had  both 
been  at  to  get  her  settled  in  it  were  all  nothing. 

She  had  the  composure  to  say,  "You  can.  leave 
your  shawl  with  me,  Miss  Triscoe,"  and  to  receive  her 
fervent,  "  Oh,  thank  you,"  before  they  sailed  off  to 
gether,  with  inhuman  indifference  to  the  girl  at  the 
corner  of  the  music-room.  Then  she  sank  into  a  kind 
of  triumphal  collapse,  from  which  she  roused  herself 
to  point  her  husband  to  the  chair  beside  her  when  he 
happened  along. 

He  chose  to  be  perverse  about  her  romance. 
**  Well,  now,  you  had  better  let  them  alone.  Remem- 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  93 

ber  Kendricks."  He  meant  one  of  their  young  friends 
whose  love-affair  they  had  promoted  till  his  happy 
marriage  left  them  in  lasting  doubt  of  what  they  had 
done.  "  My  sympathies  are  all  with  the  pivotal  girl. 
Hadn't  she  as  much  right  to  him,  for  the  time  being, 
or  for  good  and  all,  as  Miss  Triscoe  ? " 

"  That  depends  upon  what  you  think  of  Burnamy." 

"  Well,  I  don't  like  to  see  a  girl  have  a  young  man 
snatched  away  from  her  just  when  she's  made  sure  of 
him.  How  do  you  suppose  she  is  feeling  now  ? " 

"  She  isn't  feeling  at  all.  She's  letting  her  revolv 
ing  light  fall  upon  half  a  dozen  other  young  men  by 
this  time,  collectively  or  consecutively.  All  that  she 
wants  to  make  sure  of  is  that  they're  young  men — or 
old  ones,  even." 

March  laughed,  but  not  altogether  at  what  his  wife 
said.  "  I've  been  having  a  little  talk  with  Papa  Tris 
coe,  in  the  smoking-room." 

"  You  smell  like  it,"  said  his  wife,  not  to  seem  too 
eager.  "  Well  ?  " 

"  Well,  Papa  Triscoe  seems  to  be  in  a  pout.  He 
doesn't  think  things  are  going  as  they  should  in  Amer 
ica.  He  hasn't  been  consulted,  or  if  he  has,  his  opin 
ion  hasn't  been  acted  upon." 

"  I  think  he's  horrid,"  said  Mrs.  March.  "  Who 
are  they  ? " 

"  I  couldn't  make  out,  and  I  couldn't  ask.  But  I'll 
tell  you  what  I  think." 

"  What  ?  " 

"  That  there's  no  chance  for  Burnamy.  He's  tak 
ing  his  daughter  out  to  marry  her  to  a  crowned  head." 


XV. 

IT  was  this  afternoon  that  the  dance  took  place  on 
the  south  promenade.  Everybody  came  and  looked, 
and  the  circle  around  the  waltzers  was  three  or  four 
deep.  Between  the  surrounding  heads  and  shoulders, 
the  hats  of  the  young  ladies  wheeling  and  whirling, 
and  the  faces  of  the  men  who  were  wheeling  and 
whirling  them,  rose  and  sank  with  the  rhythm  of  their 
steps.  The  space  allotted  to  the  dancing  was  walled 
to  seaward  with  canvas,  and  was  prettily  treated  with 
German  and  American  flags :  it  was  hard  to  go  wrong 
with  flags,  Miss  Triscoe  said,  securing  herself  under 
Mrs.  March's  wing. 

Where  they  stood  they  could  see  Burnamy's  face, 
flashing  and  flushing  in  the  dance ;  at  the  end  of  the 
first  piece  he  came  to  them,  and  remained  talking  and 
laughing  till  the  music  began  again. 

"  Don't  you  want  to  try  it  ? "  he  asked  abruptly  of 
Miss  Triscoe. 

"  Isn't  it  rather — public  ?  "  she  asked  back. 

Mrs.  March  could  feel  the  hand  which  the  girl  had 
put  through  her  arm  thrill  with  temptation ;  but  Bur- 
namy  could  not. 

"Perhaps  it  is  rather  obvious,"  he  said,  and   he 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  95 

made  a  long  glide  over  the  deck  to  the  feet  of  the 
pivotal  girl,  anticipating  another  young  man  who  was 
rapidly  advancing  from  the  opposite  quarter.  The 
next  moment  her  hat  and  his  face  showed  themselves 
in  the  necessary  proximity  to  each  other  within  the 
circle. 

"  How  well  she  dances  !  "  said  Miss  Triscoe. 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  She  looks  as  if  she  had  been 
wound  up  and  set  going." 

"  She's  very  graceful,"  the  girl  persisted. 

The  day  ended  with  an  entertainment  in  the  saloon 
for  one  of  the  marine  charities  which  address  them 
selves  to  the  hearts  and  pockets  of  passengers  on  all 
steamers.  There  were  recitations  in  English  and  Ger 
man,  and  songs  from  several  people  who  had  kindly 
consented,  and  ever  more  piano  performance.  Most 
of  those  who  took  part  were  of  the  race  gifted  in  art 
and  finance ;  its  children  excelled  in  the  music,  and 
its  fathers  counted  the  gate-money  during  the  last 
half  of  the  programme,  with  an  audible  clinking  of 
the  silver  on  the  table  before  them. 

Miss  Triscoe  was  with  her  father,  and  Mrs.  March 
was  herself  chaperoned  by  Mr.  Burnamy  :  her  husband 
had  refused  to  come  to  the  entertainment.  She  hoped 
to  leave  Burnamy  and  Miss  Triscoe  together  before 
the  evening  ended ;  but  Miss  Triscoe  merely  stopped 
with  her  father,  in  quitting  the  saloon,  to  laugh  at 
some  features  of  the  entertainment,  as  people  who 
take  no  part  in  such  things  do ;  Burnamy  stood  up  to 
exchange  some  unimpassioned  words  with  her,  and 
then  they  said  good-night. 


96  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

The  next  morning,  at  five  o'clock,  the  Norumbia 
came  to  anchor  in  the  pretty  harbor  of  Plymouth.  In 
the  cool  early  light  the  town  lay  distinct  along  the 
shore,  quaint  with  its  small  English  houses,  and  stately 
with  some  public  edifices  of  unknown  function  on  the 
uplands ;  a  cor.ntry-seat  of  aristocratic  aspect  showed 
itself  on  one  of  the  heights ;  on  another  the  tower  of 
a  country  church  peered  over  the  tree-tops  ;  there  were 
lines  of  fortifications,  as  peaceful,  at  their  distance,  as 
the  stone  walls  dividing  the  green  fields.  The  very 
iron-clads  in  the  harbor  close  at  hand  contributed  to 
the  amiable  gayety  of  the  scene  under  the  pale  blue 
English  sky,  already  broken  with  clouds  from  which 
the  flush  of  the  sunrise  had  not  quite  faded.  The 
breath  of  the  land  came  freshly  out  over  the  water ; 
one  could  almost  smell  the  grass  and  the  leaves.  Gulls 
wheeled  and  darted  over  the  crisp  water ;  the  tones  of 
the  English  voices  on  the  tender  were  pleasant  to  the 
ear,  as  it  fussed  and  scuffled  to  the  ship's  side.  A 
few  score  of  the  passengers  left  her ;  with  their  bag 
gage  they  formed  picturesque  groups  on  the  tender's 
deck,  and  they  set  out  for  the  shore  waving  their 
hands  and  their  handkerchiefs  to  the  friends  they  left 
clustering  along  the  rail  of  the  Norumlia.  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Leffers  bade  March  farewell,  in  the  final  fondness 
inspired  by  his  having  coffee  with  them  before  they 
left  the  ship ;  they  said  they  hated  to  leave. 

The  stop  had  roused  everybody,  and  the  breakfast 
tables  were  promptly  filled,  except  such  as  the  passen 
gers  landing  at  Plymouth  had  vacated ;  these  were 
stripped  of  their  cloths,  and  the  remaining  commen- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  97 

sals  placed  at  others.  The  seats  of  the  Lefferses  were 
given  to  March's  old  Ohio  friend  and  his  wife.  He 
tried  to  engage  them  in  the  talk  which  began  to  be 
general  in  the  excitement  of  having  touched  land  ;  but 
they  shyly  held  aloof. 

Some  English  newspapers  had  come  aboard  from 
the  tug,  and  there  was  the  usual  good-natured  adjust 
ment  of  the  American  self-satisfaction,  among  those 
who  had  seen  them,  to  the  ever-surprising  fact  that 
our  continent  is  apparently  of  no  interest  to  Europe. 
There  were  some  meagre  New  York  stock-market 
quotations  in  the  papers ;  a  paragraph  in  fine  print 
announced  the  lynching  of  a  negro  in  Alabama ;  an 
other  recorded  a  coal-mining  strike  in  Pennsylvania. 

"  I  always  have  to  get  used  to  it  over  again,"  said 
Kenby.  "This  is  the  twentieth  time  I  have  been 
across,  and  I'm  just  as  much  astonished  as  I  was  the 
first,  to  find  out  that  they  don't  want  to  know  any 
thing  about  us  here." 

"  Oh,"  said  March,  "  curiosity  and  the  weather  both 
come  from  the  west*  San  Francisco  wants  to  know 
about  Denver,  Denver  about  Chicago,  Chicago  about 
New  York,  and  New  York  about  London ;  but  curios 
ity  never  travels  the  other  way  any  more  than  a  hot 
wave  or  a  cold  wave." 

"  Ah,  but  London  doesn't  care  a  rap  about  Vienna," 
said  Kenby. 

"  Well,  some  pressures  give  out  before  they  reach 
the  coast,  on  our  own  side.  It  isn't  an  infallible  an 
alogy." 

Triscoe  was  fiercely  chewing  a  morsel,  as  if  in  haste 
G 


98  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

to  take  part  in  the  discussion.  He  gulped  it,  and 
broke  out.  "  Why  should  they  care  about  us,  any 
way  ? " 

March  lightly  ventured,  "  Oh,  men  and  brothers, 
you  know." 

"  That  isn't  sufficient  ground.  The  Chinese  are 
men  and  brothers;  so  are  the  South-Americans  and 
Central-Africans,  and  Hawaiians ;  but  we're  not  impa 
tient  for  the  latest  news  about  them.  It's  civilization 
that  interests  civilization." 

"  I  hope  that  fact  doesn't  leave  us  out  in  the  cold 
with  the  barbarians?"  Burnamy  put  in,  with  a  smile. 

"  Do  you  think  we  are  civilized  ? "  retorted  the 
other. 

"  We  have  that  superstition  in  Chicago,"  said 
Burnamy.  He  added,  still  smiling,'"  About  the  New- 
Yorkers,  I  mean." 

"  You're  more  superstitious  in  Chicago  than  I  sup 
posed.  New  York  is  an  anarchy,  tempered  by  vigil 
ance  committees." 

"Oh,  I  don't  think  you  can  say  that,"  Kenby 
cheerfully  protested,  "  since  the  Reformers  came  in. 
Look  at  our  streets  !  " 

"  Yes,  our  streets  are  clean,  for  the  time  being,  and 
when  we  look  at  them  we  think  we  have  made  a  clean 
sweep  in  our  manners  and  morals.  But  how  long  do 
you  think  it  will  be  before  Tammany  will  be  in  the 
saddle  again  ? " 

"  Oh,  never  in  the  world  ! "  said  the  optimistic  head 
of  the  table. 

"  I  wish  I  had  your  faith ;  or  I  should  if  I  didn't 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  99 

feel  that  it  is  one  of  the  things  that  help  to  establish 
Tammanys  with  us.  You  will  see  our  Tammany  in 
power  after  the  next  election."  Kenby  laughed  in  a 
large-hearted  incredulity ;  and  his  laugh  was  like  fuel 
to  the  other's  flame.  "  New  York  is  politically  a 
mediaeval  Italian  republic,  and  it's  morally  a  frontier 
mining-town.  Socially  it's — "  He  stopped  as  if  he 
could  not  say  what. 

"  I  think  it's  a  place  where  you  have  a  very  nice 
time,  papa,"  said  his  daughter,  and  Burnamy  smiled 
with  her ;  not  because  he  knew  anything  about  it. 

Her  father  went  on  as  if  he  had  not  heard  her. 
"  It's  as  vulgar  and  crude  as  money  can  make  it. 
Nothing  counts  but  money,  and  as  soon  as  there's 
enough,  it  counts  for  everything.  In  less  than  a  year 
you'll  have  Tammany  in  power ;  it  won't  be  more  than 
a  year  till  you'll  have  it  in  society." 

"  Oh  no  !  Oh  no  !  "  came  from  Kenby.  He  did 
not  care  much  for  society,  but  he  vaguely  respected  it 
as  the  stronghold  of  the  proprieties  and  the  amenities. 

"Isn't  society  a  good  place  for  Tammany  to  be 
in?"  asked  March  in  the  pause  Triscoe  let  follow 
upon  Kenby's  laugh. 

"  There's  no  reason  why  it  shouldn't  be.  Society 
is  as  bad  as  all  the  rest  of  it.  And  what  New  York 
is,  politically,  morally,  and  socially,  the  whole  country 
wishes  to  be  and  tries  to  be." 

There  was  that  measure  of  truth  in  the  words  which 
silences ;  no  one  could  find  just  the  terms  of  refuta 
tion. 

"Well,"  said  Kenby  at  last,  "it's  a  good    thing 


100          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

there  are  so  many  lines  to  Europe.  We've  still  got 
the  right  to  emigrate." 

"  Yes,  but  even  there  we  don't  escape  the  abuse  of 
our  infamous  newspapers  for  exercising  a  man's  right 
to  live  where  he  chooses.  And  there  is  no  country 
in  Europe — except  Turkey,  or  Spain — that  isn't  a 
better  home  for  an  honest  man  than  the  United 
States." 

The  Ohioan  had  once  before  cleared  his  throat  as 
if  he  were  going  to  speak.  Now,  he  leaned  far  enough 
forward  to  catch  Triscoe's  eye,  and  said,  slowly  and 
distinctly :  "  I  don't  know  just  what  reason  you  have 
to  feel  as  you  do  about  the  country.  I  feel  differently 
about  it  myself — perhaps  because  I  fought  for  it." 

At  first,  the  others  were  glad  of  this  arrogance ;  it 
even  seemed  an  answer ;  but  Burnamy  saw  Miss  Tris 
coe's  cheek  flush,  and  then  he  doubted  its  validity. 

Triscoe  nervously  crushed  a  biscuit  in  his  hand,  as 
if  to  expend  a  violent  impulse  upon  it.  He  said, 
coldly,  "  I  was  speaking  from  that  stand-point." 

The  Ohioan  shrank  back  in  his  seat,  and  March 
felt  sorry  for  him,  though  he  had  put  himself  in  the 
wrong.  His  old  hand  trembled  beside  his  plate,  and 
his  head  shook,  while  his  lips  formed  silent  words ; 
and  his  shy  wife  was  sharing  his  pain  and  shame. 

Kenby  began  to  talk  about  the  stop  which  the 
Norumbia  was  to  make  at  Cherbourg,  and  about  what 
hour  the  next  day  they  should  all  be  in  Cuxhaven. 
Miss  Triscoe  said  they  had  never  come  on  the  Hanse- 
atic  Line  before,  and  asked  several  questions.  Her 
father  did  not  speak  again,  and  after  a  little  while  he 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  101 

rose  without  waiting  for  her  to  make  the  move  from 
table  ;  he  had  punctiliously  deferred  to  her  hitherto. 
Eltwin  rose  at  the  same  time,  and  March  feared  that 
he  might  be  going  to  provoke  another  defeat,  in  some 
way. 

Eltwin  lifted  his  voice,  and  said,  trying  to  catch 
Triscoe's  eye,  "  I  think  I  ought  to  beg  your  pardon, 
sir.  I  do  beg  your  pardon." 

March  perceived  that  Eltwin  wished  to  make  the 
offer  of  his  reparation  as  distinct  as  his  aggression 
had  been;  and  now  he  quaked  for  Triscoe,  whose 
daughter  he  saw  glance  apprehensively  at  her  father 
as  she  swayed  aside  to  let  the  two  men  come  together. 

"  That  is  all  right,  Colonel — " 

"  Major,"  Eltwin  conscientiously  interposed. 

"  Major,"  Triscoe  bowed ;  and  he  put  out  his  hand 
and  grasped  the  hand  which  had  been  tremulously 
rising  toward  him.  "  There  can't  be  any  doubt  of 
what  we  did,  no  matter  what  we've  got." 

"  No,  no  ! "  said  the  other,  eagerly.  "  That  was 
what  I  meant,  sir.  I  don't  think  as  you  do  ;  but  I 
believe  that  a  man  who  helped  to  save  the  country 
has  a  right  to  think  what  he  pleases  about  it." 

Triscoe  said,  "  That  is  all  right,  my  dear  sir.  May 
I  ask  your  regiment  ? " 

The  Marches  let  the  old  fellows  walk  away  together, 
followed  by  the  wife  of  the  one  and  the  daughter  of 
the  other.  They  saw  the  young  girl  making  some 
graceful  overtures  of  speech  to  the  elder  woman  as 
they  went. 

"  That  was  rather  fine,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  March. 


102  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know.  It  was  a  little  too  dramatic, 
wasn't  it?  It  wasn't  what  I  should  have  expected  of 
real  life." 

"  Oh,  you  spoil  everything !  If  that's  the  spirit 
you're  going  through  Europe  in  ! " 

"  It  isn't.  As  soon  as  I  touch  European  soil  I  shall 
reform." 


XVI. 

THAT  was  not  the  first  time  General  Triscoe  had 
silenced  question  of  his  opinions  with  the  argument 
he  had  used  upon  Eltwin,  though  he  was  seldom  able 
to  use  it  so  aptly.  lie  always  found  that  people  suf 
fered  his  belief  in  our  national  degeneration  much 
more  readily  when  they  knew  that  he  had  left  a  dip 
lomatic  position  in  Europe  (he  had  gone  abroad  as 
secretary  of  a  minor  legation)  to  come  home  and  fight 
for  the  Union.  Some  millions  of  other  men  had  gone 
into  the  war  from  the  varied  motives  which  impelled 
men  at  that  time ;  but  he  was  aware  that  he  had  dis 
tinction,  as  a  man  of  property  and  a  man  of  family,  in 
doing  so.  His  family  had  improved  as  time  passed, 
and  it  was  now  so  old  that  back  of  his  grandfather  it 
was  lost  in  antiquity.  This  ancestor  had  retired  from 
the  sea  and  become  a  merchant  in  his  native  Rhode 
Island  port,  where  his  son  established  himself  as  a 
physician,  and  married  the  daughter  of  a  former  slave- 
trader  whose  social  position  was  the  highest  in  the 
place ;  Triscoe  liked  to  mention  his  maternal  grand 
father  when  he  wished  a  listener  to  realize  just  how 


104  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

anomalous  his  part  in  a  war  against  slavery  was;  it 
heightened  the  effect  of  his  pose. 

He  fought  gallantly  through  the  war,  and  he  was 
brevetted  Brigadier-General  at  the  close.  With  this 
honor,  and  with  the  wound  which  caused  an  almost 
imperceptible  limp  in  his  gait,  he  won  the  heart  of  a 
rich  New  York  girl,  and  her  father  set  him  up  in  a 
business,  which  was  not  long  in  going  to  pieces  in  his 
hands.  Then  the  young  couple  went  to  live  in  Paris, 
where  their  daughter  was  born,  and  where  the  mother 
died  when  the  child  was  ten  years  old.  A  little  later 
his  father-in-law  died,  and  Triscoe  returned  to  New 
York,  where  he  found  the  fortune  which  his  daughter 
had  inherited  was  much  less  than  he  somehow  thought 
he  had  a  right  to  expect. 

The  income  from  her  fortune  was  enough  to  live 
on,  and  he  did  not  go  back  to  Paris,  where,  in  fact, 
things  were  not  so  much  to  his  mind  under  the  Repub 
lic  as  they  had  been  under  the  Second  Empire.  He 
was  still  willing  to  do  something  for  his  country,  how 
ever,  and  he  allowed  his  name  to  be  used  on  a  citizen's 
ticket  in  his  district ;  but  his  provision-man  was  sent 
to  Congress  instead.  Then  he  retired  to  Rhode  Island 
and  attempted  to  convert  his  shore  property  into  a 
watering-place ;  but  after  being  attractively  plotted 
and  laid  out  with  streets  and  sidewalks,  it  allured  no 
one  to  build  on  it  except  the  birds  and  the  chipmonks, 
and  he  came  back  to  New  York,  where  his  daughter 
had  remained  in  school. 

One  of  her  maternal  aunts  made  her  a  coming-out 
tea,  after  she  left  school ;  and  she  entered  upon  a 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  105 

series  of  dinners,  dances,  theatre  parties,  and  recep 
tions  of  all  kinds ;  but  the  tide  of  fairy  gold  pouring 
through  her  fingers  left  no  engagement-ring  on  them. 
She  had  no  duties,  but  she  seldom  got  out  of  humor 
with  her  pleasures;  she  had  some  odd  tastes  of  her 
own,  and  in  a  society  where  none  but  the  most  serious 
books  were  ever  seriously  mentioned  she  was  rather 
fond  of  good  ones,  and  had  romantic  ideas  of  a  life 
that  she  vaguely  called  bohemian.  Her  character  was 
never  tested  by  anything  more  trying  than  the  fear 
that  her  father  might  take  her  abroad  to  live ;  he  had 
taken  her  abroad  several  times  for  the  summer. 

The  dreaded  trial  did  not  approach  for  several  years 
after  she  had  ceased  to  be  a  bud ;  and  then  it  came 
when  her  father  was  again  willing  to  serve  his  country 
in  diplomacy,  either  at  the  Hague,  or  at  Brussels,  or 
even  at  Berne.  Reasons  of  political  geography  pre 
vented  his  appointment  anywhere,  but  General  Triscoe 
having  arranged  his  affairs  for  going  abroad  on  the 
mission  he  had  expected,  decided  to  go  without  it. 
He  was  really  very  fit  for  both  of  the  offices  he  had 
sought,  and  so  far  as  a  man  can  deserve  public  place 
by  public  service,  he  had  deserved  it.  His  pessimism 
was  uncommonly  well  grounded,  and  if  it  did  not  go 
very  deep,  it  might  well  have  reached  the  bottom  of 
his  nature. 

His  daughter  had  begun  to  divine  him  at  the  early 
age  when  parents  suppose  themselves  still  to  be  mys 
teries  to  their  children.  She  did  not  think  it  neces 
sary  ever  to  explain  him  to  others ;  perhaps  she  would 
not  have  found  it  possible ;  and  now  after  she  parted 


106  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

from  Mrs.  Eltwin  and  went  to  sit  down  beside  Mrs. 
March  she  did  not  refer  to  her  father.  She  said  how 
sweet  she  had  found  the  old  lady  from  Ohio ;  and 
what  sort  of  place  did  Mrs.  March  suppose  it  was 
where  Mrs.  Eltwin  lived  ?  They  seemed  to  have 
everything  there,  like  any  place.  She  had  wanted  to 
ask  Mrs.  Eltwin  if  they  sat  on  their  steps;  but  she 
had  not  quite  dared. 

Burnamy  came  by,  slowly,  and  at  Mrs.  March's 
suggestion  he  took  one  of  the  chairs  on  her  other 
side,  to  help  her  and  Miss  Triscoe  look  at  the  Channel 
Islands  and  watch  the  approach  of  the  steamer  to 
Cherbourg,  where  the  Norumbia  was  to  land  again. 
The  young  people  talked  across  Mrs.  March  to  each 
other,  and  said  how  charming  the  islands  were,  in 
their  gray -green  insubstantial  ity,  with  valleys  furrow 
ing  them  far  inward,  like  airy  clefts  in  low  banks  of 
clouds.  It  seemed  all  the  nicer  not  to  know  just 
which  was  which ;  but  when  the  ship  drew  nearer  to 
Cherbourg,  he  suggested  that  they  could  see  better  by 
going  round  to  the  other  side  of  the  ship.  Miss  Tris 
coe,  as  at  the  other  times  when  she  had  gone  off  with 
Burnamy,  marked  her  allegiance  to  Mrs.  March  by 
leaving  a  wrap  with  her. 

Every  one  was  restless  in  breaking  with  the  old  life 
at  sea.  There  had  been  an  equal  unrest  when  the 
ship  first  sailed ;  people  had  first  come  aboard  in  the 
demoralization  of  severing  their  ties  with  home,  and 
they  shrank  from  forming  others.  Then  the  charm 
of  the  idle,  eventless  life  grew  upon  them,  and  united 
them  in  a  fond  reluctance  from  the  inevitable  end. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  107 

Now  that  the  beginning  of  the  end  had  come,  the 
pangs  of  disintegration  were  felt  in  all  the  once-more- 
repellant  particles.  Burnamy  and  Miss  Triscoe,  as 
they  hung  upon  the  rail,  owned  to  each  other  that 
they  hated  to  have  the  voyage  over.  They  had  liked 
leaving  Plymouth  and  being  at  sea  again  ;  they  wished 
that  they  need  not  be  reminded  of  another  debarka 
tion  by  the  energy  of  the  crane  in  hoisting  the  Cher 
bourg  baggage  from  the  hold. 

They  approved  of  the  picturesqueness  of  three 
French  vessels  of  war  that  passed,  dragging  their 
kraken  shapes  low  through  the  level  water.  At  Cher 
bourg  an  emotional  French  tender  came  out  to  the 
ship,  very  different  in  her  clamorous  voices  and  excited 
figures  from  the  steady  self-control  of  the  English 
tender  at  Plymouth ;  and  they  thought  the  French 
fortifications  much  more  on  show  than  the  English 
had  been.  Nothing  marked  their  youthful  date  so 
much  to  the  Marches,  who  presently  joined  them,  as 
their  failure  to  realize  that  in  this  peaceful  sea  the 
great  battle  between  the  Kearsarge  and  the  Alabama 
was  fought.  The  elder  couple  tried  to  affect  their 
imaginations  with  the  fact  which  reanimated  the  spec 
tre  of  a  dreadful  war  for  themselves ;  but  they  had  to 
pass  on  and  leave  the  young  people  unmoved. 

Mrs.  March  wondered  if  they  noticed  the  debarka 
tion  of  the  pivotal  girl,  whom  she  saw  standing  on  the 
deck  of  the  tender,  with  her  hands  at  her  waist,  and 
giving  now  this  side  and  now  that  side  of  her  face  to 
the  young  men  waving  their  hats  to  her  from  the  rail 
of  the  ship.  Burnamy  was  not  of  their  number,  and 


108          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

he  seemed  not  to  know  that  the  girl  was  leaving  him 
finally  to  Miss  Triscoe.  If  Miss  Triscoe  knew  it  she 
did  nothing  the  whole  of  that  long,  last  afternoon  to 
profit  by  the  fact.  Burnamy  spent  a  great  part  of  it 
in  the  chair  beside  Mrs.  March,  and  he  showed  an  in 
tolerable  resignation  to  the  girl's  absence. 

"  Yes,"  said  March,  taking  the  place  Burnamy  left 
at  last,  "  that  terrible  patience  of  youth  !  " 

"Patience?  Folly!  Stupidity!  They  ought  to 
be  together  every  instant !  Do  they  suppose  that  life 
is  full  of  such  chances  ?  Do  they  think  that  fate  has 
nothing  to  do  but — " 

She  stopped  for  a  fit  climax,  and  he  suggested, 
"  Hang  round  and  wait  on  them  ? " 

"  Yes  !  It's  their  one  chance  in  a  life-time,  proba 
bly." 

"  Then  you've  quite  decided  that  they're  in  love  ? " 
He  sank  comfortably  back,  and  put  up  his  weary  legs 
on  the  chair's  extension  with  the  conviction  that  love 
had  no  such  joy  as  that  to  offer. 

"  I've  decided  that  they're  intensely  interested  in 
each  other." 

"  Then  what  more  can  we  ask  of  them  ?  And  why 
do  you  care  what  they  do  or  don't  do  with  their 
chance  ?  Why  do  you  wish  their  love  well,  if  it's 
that?  Is  marriage  such  a  very  certain  good? " 

"  It  isn't  all  that  it  might  be,  but  it's  all  that  there 
is.  What  would  our  lives  have  been  without  it  ? "  she 
retorted. 

"  Oh,  we  should  have  got  on.  It's  such  a  tremen 
dous  risk  that  we  ought  to  go  round  begging  people 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  109 

to  think  twice,  to  count  a  hundred,  or  a  nonillion,  be 
fore  they  fall  in  love  to  the  marrying-point.  I  don't 
mind  their  flirting ;  that  amuses  them ;  but  marrying 
is  a  different  thing.  I  doubt  if  Papa  Triscoe  would 
take  kindly  to  the  notion  of  a  son-in-law  he  hadn't 
selected  himself,  and  his  daughter  doesn't  strike  me 
as  a  young  lady  who  has  any  wisdom  to  throw  away 
on  a  choice.  She  has  her  little  charm  ;  her  little  gift 
of  beauty,  of  grace,  of  spirit,  and  the  other  things 
that  go  with  her  age  and  sex ;  but  what  could  she  do 
for  a  fellow  like  Burnamy,  who  has  his  way  to  make, 
who  has  the  ladder  of  fame  to  climb,  with  an  old  moth 
er  at  the  bottom  of  it  to  look  after  ?  You  wouldn't 
want  him  to  have  an  eye  on  Miss  Triscoe's  money, 
even  if  she  had  money,  and  I  doubt  if  she  has  much. 
It's  all  very  pretty  to  have  a  girl  like  her  fascinated 
with  a  youth  of  his  simple  traditions;  though  Burna 
my  isn't  altogether  pastoral  in  his  ideals,  and  he  looks 
forward  to  a  place  in  the  very  world  she  belongs  to. 
I  don't  think  it's  for  us  to  promote  the  affair." 

"  Well,  perhaps  you're  right,"  she  sighed.  "  I  will 
let  them  alone  from  this  out.  Thank  goodness,  I 
shall  not  have  them  under  my  eyes  very  long." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  think  there's  any  harm  done  yet"  said 
her  husband,  with  a  laugh. 

At  dinner  there  seemed  so  little  harm  of  the  kind 
he  meant  that  she  suffered  from  an  illogical  disap 
pointment.  The  young  people  got  through  the  meal 
with  no  talk  that  seemed  inductive ;  Burnamy  left  the 
table  first,  and  Miss  Triscoe  bore  his  going  without 
apparent  discouragement ;  she  kept  on  chatting  with 


110          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

March  till  his  wife  took  him  away  to  their  chairs  on 
deck. 

There  were  a  few  more  ships  in  sight  than  there 
were  in  mid-ocean  ;  but  the  late  twilight  thickened 
over  the  North  Sea  quite  like  the  night  after  they  left 
New  York,  except  that  it  was  colder;  and  their  hearts 
turned  to  their  children,  who  had  been  in  abeyance 
for  the  week  past,  with  a  remorseful  pang.  "Well," 
she  said,  "  I  wish  we  were  going  to  be  in  New  York 
to-morrow,  instead  of  Hamburg." 

"  Oh,  no  !  Oh,  no  !  "  he  protested.  "  Not  so  bad 
as  that,  my  dear.  This  is  the  last  night,  and  it's  hard 
to  manage,  as  the  last  night  always  is.  I  suppose  the 
last  night  on  earth — " 

"  Basil !  "  she  implored. 

"  Well,  I  won't,  then.  But  what  I  want  is  to  see 
a  Dutch  lugger.  I've  never  seen  a  Dutch  lugger, 
and—" 

She  suddenly  pressed  his  arm,  and  in  obedience  to 
the  signal  he  was  silent;  though  it  seemed  afterwards 
that  he  ought  to  have  gone  on  talking  as  if  he  did  not 
see  Burnamy  and  Miss  Triscoe  swinging  slowly  by. 
They  were  walking  close  together,  and  she  was  lean 
ing  forward  and  looking  up  into  his  face  while  he 
talked. 

"Now"  Mrs.  March  whispered,  long  after  they 
were  out  of  hearing,  "  let  us  go  instantly.  I  wouldn't 
for  worlds  have  them  see  us  here  when  they  get  round 
again.  They  would  feel  that  they  had  to  stop  and 
speak,  and  that  would  spoil  everything.  Come  !  " 


XVII. 

BURNAMY  paused  in  a  flow  of  autobiography,  and 
modestly  waited  for  Miss  Triscoe's  prompting.  He 
had  not  to  wait  long. 

"And  then,  how  soon  did  you  think  of  printing 
your  things  in  a  book  ? " 

"  Oh,  about  as  soon  as  they  began  to  take  with  the 
public." 

"  How  could  you  tell  that  they  were — taking  ? " 

"  They  were  copied  into  other  papers,  and  people 
talked  about  them." 

"  And  that  was  what  made  Mr.  Stoller  want  you  to 
be  his  secretary  ?  " 

"  I  don't  believe  it  was.  The  theory  in  the  office 
was  that  he  didn't  think  much  of  them ;  but  he  knows 
I  can  write  shorthand,  and  put  things  into  shape." 

"  What  things  ?  " 

"  Oh — ideas.  He  has  a  notion  of  trying  to  come 
forward  in  politics.  He  owns  shares  in  everything 
but  the  United  States  Senate — gas,  electricity,  rail 
roads,  aldermen,  newspapers — and  now  he  would  like 
some  Senate.  That's  what  I  think." 

She  did  not  quite  understand,  and  she  was  far  from 


112  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

knowing  that  this  cynic  humor  expressed  a  deadlier 
pessimism  than  her  father's  fiercest  accusals  of  the 
country.  "  How  fascinating  it  is  ! "  she  said,  inno- 
ently.  "  And  I  suppose  they  all  envy  your  coming 
out?" 

"In  the  office?" 

"  Yes.  /  should  envy  them — staying" 
Burnamy  laughed.  "  I  don't  believe  they  envy  me. 
It  won't  be  all  roses  for  me — they  know  that.  But 
they  know^that  I  can  take  care  of  myself  if  it  isn't." 
He  remembered  something  one  of  his  friends  in  the 
office  had  said  of  the  painful  surprise  the  Bird  of  Prey 
would  feel  if  he  ever  tried  his  beak  on  him  in  the  be 
lief  that  he  was  soft. 

She  abruptly  left  the  mere  personal  question. 
''  And  which  would  you  rather  write :  poems  or  those 
kind  of  sketches  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Burnamy,  willing  to  talk  of 
himself  on  any  terms.  "  I  suppose  that  prose  is  the 
thing  for  our  time,  rather  more  ;  but  there  are  things 
you  can't  say  in  prose. '  I  used  to  write  a  great  deal 
of  verse  in  college ;  but  I  didn't  have  much  luck  with 
editors  till  Mr.  March  took  this  little  piece  for  Every 
Other  Week." 

"  Little  ?     I  thought  it  was  a  long  poem  !  " 
Burnamy  laughed  at  the  notion.     "  It's  only  eight 
lines." 

"  Oh  !  "  said  the  girl.     «  What  is  it  about  ? " 
He  yielded  to  the  temptation  with  a  weakness  which 
he  found  incredible  in  a  person  of  his  make.     "  I  can 
repeat  it  if  you  won't  give  me  away  to  Mrs.  March." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  113 

"  Oh,  no  indeed  !  "  He  said  the  lines  over  to  her 
very  simply  and  well.  "  They  are  beautiful — beauti 
ful  !  " 

"  Do  you  think  so  ? "  he  gasped,  in  his  joy  at  her 
praise. 

"  Yes,  lovely.  Do  you  know,  you  are  the  first  lit 
erary  man — the  only  literary  man — I  ever  talked  with. 
They  must  go  out — somewhere !  Papa  must  meet 
them  at  his  clubs.  But  I  never  do ;  and  so  I'm  mak 
ing  the  most  of  you." 

"  You  can't  make  too  much  of  me,  Miss  Triscoe," 
said  Burnamy. 

She  would  not  mind  his  mocking.  "That  day  you 
spoke  about  The  Maiden  KnigJit,  don't  you  know,  I 
had  never  heard  any  talk  about  books  in  that  way.  I 
didn't  know  you  were  an  author  then." 

"  Well,  I'm  not  much  of  an  author  now,"  he  said, 
cynically,  to  retrieve  his  folly  in  repeating  his  poem 
to  her. 

"  Oh,  that  will  do  for  you  to  say.  But  I  know 
what  Mrs.  March  thinks." 

He  wished  very  much  to  know  what  Mrs.  March 
thought,  too  ;  Every  Other  Week  was  such  a  very  good 
place  that  he  could  not  conscientiously  neglect  any 
means  of  having  his  work  favorably  considered  there ; 
if  Mrs.  March's  interest  in  it  would  act  upon  her 
husband,  ought  not  he  to  know  just  how  much  she 
thought  of  him  as  a  writer?  "Did  she  like  the 
poem  ? " 

Miss  Triscoe  could  not  recall  that  Mrs.  March  had 
said  anything  about  the  poem,  but  she  launched  her- 


114  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

self  upon  the  general  current  of  Mrs.  March's  liking 
for  Burnamy.  "  But  it  wouldn't  do  to  tell  you  all 
she  said  !  "  This  was  not  what  he  hoped,  but  he  was 
richly  content  when  she  returned  to  his  personal  his 
tory.  "  And  you  didn't  know  any  one  when  you 
went  up  to  Chicago  from — " 

"  Tippecanoe  ?  Not  exactly  that.  I  wasn't  acquaint 
ed  with  any  one  in  the  office,  but  they  had  printed 
some  things  of  mine,  and  they  were  willing  to  let  me 
try  my  hand.  That  was  all  I  could  ask." 

"  Of  course  !  You  knew  you  could  do  the  rest. 
Well,  it  is  like  a  romance.  A  woman  couldn't  have 
such  an  adventure  as  that ! "  sighed  the  girl. 

"  But  women  do  !  "  Burnamy  retorted.  "  There  is 
a  girl  writing  on  the  paper  now — she's  going  to  do 
the  literary  notices  while  I'm  gone — who  came  to 
Chicago  from  Ann  Arbor,  with  no  more  chance  than 
I  had,  and  who's  made  her  way  single-handed  from 
interviewing  up." 

"  Oh,"  said  Miss  Triscoe,  with  a  distinct  drop  in 
her  enthusiasm.  "  Is  she  nice? '' 

"  She's  mighty  clever,  and  she's  nice  enough,  too, 
though  the  kind  of  journalism  that  women  do  isn't 
the  most  dignified.  And  she's  one  of  the  best  girls  I 
know,  with  lots  of  sense." 

"  It  must  be  very  interesting,"  said  Miss  Triscoe, 
with  little  interest  in  the  way  she  said  it.  "  I  suppose 
you're  quite  a  little  community  by  yourselves." 

"On  the  paper?" 

"Yes." 

"  Well,  some  of  us  know  one  another,  in  the  office, 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  115 

but  most  of  us  don't.  There's  quite  a  regiment  of 
people  on  a  big  paper.  If  you'd  like  to  come  out," 
Burnamy  ventured,  "  perhaps  you  could  get  the  Wom 
an's  Page  to  do." 

"What's  that?" 

"  Oh,  fashion ;  and  personal  gossip  about  society 
leaders ;  and  recipes  for  dishes  and  diseases ;  and  cor 
respondence  on  points  of  etiquette." 

He  expected  her  to  shudder  at  the  notion,  but  she 
merely  asked,  "  Do  women  write  it  ? " 

He  laughed  reminiscently.  "  Well,  not  always. 
We  had  one  man  who  used  to  do  it  beautifully — when 
he  was  sober.  The  department  hasn't  had  any  per 
manent  head  since." 

He  was  sorry  he  had  said  this,  but  it  did  not  seem 
to  shock  her,  and  no  doubt  she  had  not  taken  it  in 
fully.  She  abruptly  left  the  subject.  "  Do  you  know 
what  time  we  really  get  in  to-morrow  ? " 

"  About  one,  I  believe — there's  a  consensus  of 
stewards  to  that  effect,  anyway."  After  a  pause  he 
asked,  "  Are  you  likely  to  be  in  Carlsbad  ? " 

"  We  are  going  to  Dresden,  first,  I  believe.  Then 
we  may  go  on  down  to  Vienna.  But  nothing  is  set 
tled,  yet." 

"  Are  you  going  direct  to  Dresden  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  We  may  stay  in  Hamburg  a  day 
or  two." 

"I've  got  to  go  straight  to  Carlsbad.  There's  a 
sleeping-car  that  will  get  me  there  by  morning:  Mr. 
Stoller  likes  zeal.  But  I  hope  you'll  let  me  be  of  use 
to  you  any  way  I  can,  before  we  part  to-morrow." 


116  THEIR    SILVER    AVEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  You're  very  kind.  You've  been  very  good  already 
— to  papa."  He  protested  that  he  had  not  been  at 
all  good.  "But  he's  used  to  taking  care  of  himself 
on  the  other  side.  Oh,  it's  this  side,  now  ! " 

"  So  it  is !  How  strange  that  seems  !  It's  actually 
Europe.  But  as  long  as  we're  at  sea,  we  can't  realize 
it.  Don't  you  hate  to  have  experiences  slip  through 
your  fingers  ? " 

"  I  don't  know.  A  girl  doesn't  have  many  experi 
ences  of  her  own ;  they're  always  other  people's." 

This  affected  Burnamy  as  so  profound  that  he  did 
not  question  its  truth.  He  only  suggested,  "  Well, 
sometimes  they  make  other  people  have  the  experi 
ences." 

Whether  Miss  Triscoe  decided  that  this  was  too 
intimate  or  not  she  left  the  question.  "  Do  you  un 
derstand  German  ? " 

"  A  little.  I  studied  it  at  college,  and  I've  culti 
vated  a  sort  of  beer-garden  German  in  Chicago.  I 
can  ask  for  things." 

"  I  can't,  except  in  French,  and  that's  worse  than 
English,  in  Germany,  I  hear." 

"  Then  you  must  let  me  be  your  interpreter  up  to 
the  last  moment.  Will  you  ? " 

She  did  not  answer.  "  It  must  be  rather  late,  isn't 
it  ? "  she  asked.  He  let  her  see  his  watch,  and  she 
said,  "  Yes,  it's  very  late,"  and  led  the  way  within. 
"  I  must  look  after  my  packing ;  papa's  always  so 
prompt,  and  I  must  justify  myself  for  making  him  let 
me  give  up  my  maid  when  we  left  home ;  we  expect 
to  get  one  in  Dresden.  Good-night !  " 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  117 

Burnamy  looked  after  her  drifting  down  their  cor 
ridor,  and  wondered  whether  it  would  have  been  a  fit 
return  for  her  expression  of  a  sense  of  novelty  in  him 
as  a  literary  man  if  he  had  told  her  that  she  was  the 
first  young  lady  he  had  known  who  had  a  maid.  The 
fact  awed  him ;  Miss  Triscoe  herself  did  not  awe  him 
so  much. 


XVIII. 

THE  next  morning  was  merely  a  transitional  period, 
full  of  turmoil  and  disorder,  between  the  broken  life 
of  the  sea  and  the  untried  life  of  the  shore.  No  one 
attempted  to  resume  the  routine  of  the  voyage.  Peo 
ple  went  and  came  between  their  rooms  and  the  sa 
loons  and  the  decks,  and  were  no  longer  careful  to 
take  their  own  steamer  chairs  when  they  sat  down  for 
a  moment. 

In  the  cabins  the  berths  were  not  made  up,  and 
those  who  remained  below  had  to  sit  on  their  hard 
edges,  or  on  the  sofas,  which  were  cumbered  with 
hand-bags  and  rolls  of  shawls.  At  an  early  hour  after 
breakfast  the  bedroom  stewards  began  to  get  the 
steamer  trunks  out  and  pile  them  in  the  corridors ; 
the  servants  all  became  more  caressingly  attentive; 
and  people  who  had  left  off  settling  the  amount  of  the 
fees  they  were  going  to  give,  anxiously  conferred 
together.  The  question  whether  you  ought  ever  to 
give  the  head  steward  anything  pressed  crucially  at 
the  early  lunch,  and  Kenby  brought  only  a  partial 
relief  by  saying  that  he  always  regarded  the  head 
steward  as  an  officer  of  the  ship.  March  made  the 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  119 

experiment  of  offering  him  six  marks,  and  the  head 
steward  took  them  quite  as  if  he  were  not  an  officer 
of  the  ship.  He  also  collected  a  handsome  fee  for 
the  music,  which  is  the  tax  levied  on  all  German  ships 
beyond  the  tolls  exacted  on  the  steamers  of  other 
nations. 

After  lunch  the  flat  shore  at  Cuxhaven  was  so 
near  that  the  summer  cottages  of  the  little  watering- 
place  showed  through  the  warm  drizzle  much  like  the 
summer  cottages  of  our  own  shore,  and  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  strange,  low  sky,  the  Americans  might 
easily  have  fancied  themselves  at  home  again. 

Every  one  waited  on  foot  while  the  tender  came  out 
into  the  stream  where  the  Norumbia  had  dropped 
anchor.  People  who  had  brought  their  hand-baggage 
with  them  from  their  rooms  looked  so  much  safer 
with  it  that  people  who  had  left  theirs  to  their  stew 
ards  had  to  go  back  and  pledge  them  afresh  not  to 
forget  it.  The  tender  came  alongside,  and  the  trans 
fer  of  the  heavy  trunks  began,  but  it  seemed  such  an 
endless  work  that  every  one  sat  down  in  some  other's 
chair.  At  last  the  trunks  were  all  on  the  tender,  and 
the  bareheaded  stewards  began  to  run  down  th?  gang 
ways  with  the  hand-baggage.  "  Is  this  Hoboken  ?  " 
March  murmured  in  his  wife's  ear,  with  a  bewildered 
sense  of  something  in  the  scene  like  the  reversed 
action  of  the  kinematograph. 

On  the  deck  of  the  tender  there  was  a  brief  moment 
of  reunion  among  the  companions  of  the  voyage,  the 
more  intimate  for  their  being  crowded  together  under 
cover  from  the  drizzle  which  now  turned  into  a  dash- 


12O          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

ing  rain.  Burnamy's  smile  appeared,  and  then  Mrs. 
March  recognized  Miss  Triscoe  and  her  father  in 
their  travel  dress ;  they  were  not  far  from  Burnamy's 
smile,  but  he  seemed  rather  to  have  charge  of  the 
Eltwins,  whom  he  was  helping  look  after  their  bags 
and  bundles.  Rose  Adding  was  talking  with  Kenby, 
and  apparently  asking  his  opinion  of  something;  Mrs. 
Adding  sat  near  them  tranquilly  enjoying  her  son. 

Mrs.  March  made  her  husband  identify  their  bag 
gage,  large  and  small,  and  after  he  had  satisfied  her, 
he  furtively  satisfied  himself  by  a  fresh  count  that  it 
was  all  there.  But  he  need  not  have  taken  the 
trouble ;  their  long,  calm  bedroom-steward  was  keep 
ing  guard  over  it ;  his  eyes  expressed  a  contemptuous 
pity  for  their  anxiety,  whose  like  he  must  have  been 
very  tired  of.  He  brought  their  handbags  into  the 
customs-room  at  the  station  where  they  landed;  and 
there  took  a  last  leave  and  a  last  fee  with  unexpected 
cordiality. 

Again  their  companionship  suffered  eclipse  in  the 
distraction  which  the  customs  inspectors  of  all  coun 
tries  bring  to  travellers;  and  again  they  were  united 
during  the  long  delay  in  the  waiting-room,  which  was 
also  the  restaurant.  It  was  full  of  strange  noises  and 
figures  and  odors — the  shuffling  of  feet,  the  clash  of 
crockery,  the  explosion  of  nervous  German  voices, 
mixed  with  the  smell  of  beer  and  ham,  and  the  smoke 
of  cigars.  Through  it  all  pierced  the  wail  of  a  post 
man  standing  at  the  door  with  a  letter  in  his  hand  and 
calling  out  at  regular  intervals,  "  Krahnay,  Krahnay !  " 
When  March  could  bear  it  no  longer  he  went  up  to 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  121 

him  and  shouted,  "  Crane !  Crane  ! "  and  the  man 
bowed  gratefully,  and  began  to  cry,  "  Kren !  Kren  !  " 
But  whether  Mr.  Crane  got  his  letter  or  not,  he  never 
knew. 

People  were  swarming  at  the  window  of  the  tele 
graph-office,  and  sending  home  cablegrams  to  announce 
their  safe  arrival ;  March  could  not  forbear  cabling  to 
his  son,  though  he  felt  it  absurd.  There  was  a  great 
deal  of  talking,  but  no  laughing,  except  among  the 
Americans,  and  the  girls  behind  the  bar  who  tried  to 
understand  what  they  wanted,  and  then  served  them 
with  what  they  chose  for  them.  Otherwise  the  Ger 
mans,  though  voluble,  were  unsmiling,  and  here  on 
the  threshold  of  their  empire  the  travellers  had  their 
first  hint  of  the  anxious  mood  which  seems  habitual 
with  these  amiable  people. 

Mrs.  Adding  came  screaming  with  glee  to  March 
where  he  sat  with  his  wife,  and  leaned  over  her  son 
to  ask,  "  Do  you  know  what  lese-majesty  is  ?  Rose 
is  afraid  I've  committed  it !  " 

"  No,  I  don't,"  said  March.  "  But  it's  the  unpar 
donable  sin.  What  have  you  been  doing  ?  " 

"  I  asked  the  official  at  the  door  when  our  train 
would  start,  and  when  he  said  at  half  past  three,  I 
said,  <  How  tiresome  ! '  Rose  says  the  railroads  be 
long  to  the  state  here,  and  that  if  I  find  fault  with  the 
time-table,  it's  constructive  censure  of  the  Emperor, 
and  that's  lese-majesty."  She  gave  way  to  her  mirth, 
while  the  boy  studied  March's  face  with  an  appealing 
smile. 

"Well,  I  don't  think  you'll  be  arrested  this  time, 


122          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

Mrs.  Adding ;  but  I  hope  it  will  be  a  warning  to  Mrs. 
March.  She's  been  complaining  of  the  coffee." 

"  Indeed  I  shall  say  what  I  like,"  said  Mrs.  March. 
"  I'm  an  American." 

"  Well,  you'll  find  you're  a  German,  if  you  like  to 
say  anything  disagreeable  about  the  coffee  in  the  res 
taurant  of  the  Emperor's  railroad  station ;  the  first 
thing  you  know  I  shall  be  given  three  months  on 
your  account." 

Mrs.  Adding  asked :  "  Then  they  won't  punish 
ladies  ?  There,  Rose !  I'm  safe,  you  see ;  and  you're 
still  a  minor,  though  you  are  so  wise  for  your  years." 

She  went  back  to  her  table,  where  Kenby  came  and 
sat  down  by  her. 

"  I  don't  know  that  I  quite  like  her  playing  on  that 
sensitive  child,"  said  Mrs.  March.  "And  you've 
joined  with  her  in  her  joking.  Go  and  speak  to 
him !  " 

The  boy  was  slowly  following  his  mother,  with  his 
head  fallen.  March  overtook  him,  and  he  started 
nervously  at  the  touch  of  a  hand  on  his  shoulder,  and 
then  looked  gratefully  up  into  the  man's  face.  March 
tried  to  tell  him  what  the  crime  of  lese-majesty  was, 
and  he  said :  "  Oh,  yes.  I  understood  that.  But  I 
got  to  thinking ;  and  I  don't  want  my  mother  to  take 
any  risks." 

"  I  don't  believe  she  will,  really,  Rose.  But  I'll 
speak  to  her,  and  tell  her  she  can't  be  too  cautious." 

"  Not  now,  please  !  "  the  boy  entreated. 

"  Well,  I'll  find  another  chance,"  March  assented. 
He  looked  round  and  caught  a  smiling  nod  from  Bur- 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  123 

namy,  who  was  still  with  the  Eltwins ;  the  Triscoes 
were  at  a  table  by  themselves ;  Miss  Triscoe  nodded 
too,  but  her  father  appeared  not  to  see  March.  "  It's 
all  right,  with  Rose,"  he  said,  when  he  sat  down  again 
by  his  wife  ;  "  but  I  guess  it's  all  over  with  Burnamy," 
and  he  told  her  what  he  had  seen.  "Do  you  think  it 
came  to  any  displeasure  between  them  last  night? 
Do  you  suppose  he  offered  himself,  and  she — " 

"  What  nonsense !  "  said  Mrs.  March,  but  she  was 
not  at  peace.  "It's  her  father  who's  keeping  her 
away  from  him." 

"  I  shouldn't  mind  that.  He's  keeping  her  away 
from  us,  too."  But  at  that  moment  Miss  Triscoe,  as 
if  she  had  followed  his  return  from  afar,  came  over 
to  speak  to  his  wife.  She  said  they  were  going  on  to 
Dresden  that  evening,  and  she  was  afraid  they  might 
have  no  chance  to  see  each  other  on  the  train  or  in 
Hamburg.  March,  at  this  advance,  went  to  speak 
with  her  father ;  he  found  him  no  more  reconciled  to 
Europe  than  America. 

"They're  Goths,"  he  said  of  the  Germans.  "I 
could  hardly  get  that  stupid  brute  in  the  telegraph- 
office  to  take  my  despatch." 

On  his  way  back  to  his  wife  March  met  Miss  Tris 
coe  ;  he  was  not  altogether  surprised  to  meet  Burnamy 
with  her,  now.  The  young  fellow  asked  if  he  could 
be  of  any  use  to  him,  and  then  he  said  he  would  look 
him  up  in  the  train.  He  seemed  in  a  hurry,  but 
when  he  walked  away  with  Miss  Triscoe  he  did  not 
seem  in  a  hurry. 

March  remarked  upon  the  change  to  his  wife,  and 


124          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

she  sighed,  *'  Yes,  you  can  see  that  as  far  as  they'' re 
concerned — " 

"  It's  a  great  pity  that  there  should  be  parents  to 
complicate  these  affairs,"  he  said.  "  How  simple  it 
would  be  if  there  were  no  parties  to  them  but  the 
lovers  !  But  nature  is  always  insisting  upon  fathers 
and  mothers,  and  families  on  both  sides." 


XIX. 

THE  long  train  which  they  took  at  last  was  for  the 
Norumbia's  people  alone,  and  it  was  of  several  tran 
sitional  and  tentative  types  of  cars.  Some  were  still 
the  old  coach-body  carriages  ;  but  most  were  of  a 
strange  corridor  arrangement,  with  the  aisle  at  the 
side,  and  the  seats  crossing  from  it,  with  compart 
ments  sometimes  rising  to  the  roof,  and  sometimes 
rising  half-way.  No  two  cars  seemed  quite  alike,  but 
all  were  very  comfortable ;  and  when  the  train  began 
to  run  out  through  the  little  sea-side  town  into  the 
country,  the  old  delight  of  foreign  travel  began.  Most 
of  the  houses  were  little  and  low  and  gray,  with  ivy 
or  flowering  vines  covering  their  walls  to  their  brown- 
tiled  roofs;  there  was  here  and  there  a  touch  of 
Northern  Gothic  in  the  architecture  ;  but  usually  where 
it  was  pretentious  it  was  in  the  mansard  taste,  which 
was  so  bad  with  us  a  generation  ago,  and  is  still  very 
bad  in  Cuxhaven. 

The  fields,  flat  and  wide,  were  dotted  with  familiar 
shapes  of  Holstein  cattle,  herded  by  little  girls,  with 
their  hair  in  yellow  pigtails.  The  gray,  stormy  sky 
hung  low,  and  broke  in  fitful  rains ;  but  perhaps  for 


126          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

the  inclement  season  of  mid-summer  it  was  not  very 
cold.  Flowers  were  blooming  along  the  embank 
ments  and  in  the  rank  green  fields  with  a  dogged 
energy ;  in  the  various  distances  were  groups  of  trees 
embowering  cottages  and  even  villages,  and  always 
along  the  ditches  and  watercourses  were  double  lines 
of  low  willows.  At  the  first  stop  the  train  made,  the 
passengers  flocked  to  the  refreshment-booth,  prettily 
arranged  beside  the  station,  where  the  abundance  of 
the  cherries  and  strawberries  gave  proof  that  vegeta 
tion  was  in  other  respects  superior  to  the  elements. 
But  it  was  not  of  the  profusion  of  the  sausages,  and 
the  ham  which  openly  in  slices  or  covertly  in  sand 
wiches  claimed  its  primacy  in  the  German  affections ; 
every  form  of  this  was  flanked  by  tall  glasses  of  beer. 
A  number  of  the  natives  stood  by  and  stared 
unsmiling  at  the  train,  which  had  broken  out  in  a 
rash  of  little  American  flags  at  every  window.  This 
boyish  display,  which  must  have  made  the  Americans 
themselves  laugh,  if  their  sense  of  humor  had  not 
been  lost  in  their  impassioned  patriotism,  was  the  last 
expression  of  unity  among  the  Norumbia's  passengers, 
and  they  met  no  more  in  their  sea-solidarity.  Of 
their  table  acquaintance  the  Marches  saw  no  one  ex 
cept  Burnamy,  who  came  through  the  train  looking 
for  them.  He  said  he  was  in  one  of  the  rear  cars 
with  the  Eltwins,  and  was  going  to  Carlsbad  with 
them  in  the  sleeping-car  train  leaving  Hamburg  at 
seven.  He  owned  to  having  seen  the  Triscoes  since 
they  had  left  Cuxhaven ;  Mrs.  March  would  not  suffer 
herself  to  ask  him  whether  they  were  in  the  same  car- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  127 

riage  with  the  Eltwins.  He  had  got  a  letter  from 
Mr.  Stoller  at  Cuxhaven,  and  he  begged  the  Marches 
to  let  him  engage  rooms  for  them  at  the  hotel  where 
he  was  going  to  stay  with  him. 

After  they  reached  Hamburg  they  had  flying 
glimpses  of  him  and  of  others  in  the  odious  rivalry  to 
get  their  baggage  examined  first  which  seized  upon  all, 
and  in  which  they  no  longer  knew  one  another,  but 
selfishly  struggled  for  the  good-will  of  porters  and 
inspectors.  There  was  really  no  such  haste ;  but  none 
could  govern  themselves  against  the  general  frenzy. 
With  the  porter  he  secured  March  conspired  and  per 
spired  to  win  the  attention  of  a  cold  but  not  unkindly 
inspector.  The  officer  opened  one  trunk,  and  after  a 
glance  at  it  marked  all  as  passed,  and  then  there  en 
sued  a  heroic  strife  with  the  porter  as  to  the  pieces 
which  were  to  go  to  the  Berlin  station  for  their  jour 
ney  next  day,  and  the  pieces  which  were  to  go  to  the 
hotel  overnight.  At  last  the  division  was  made;  the 
Marches  got  into  a  cab  of  the  first  class ;  and  the  porter, 
crimson  and  steaming  at  every  pore  from  the  physical 
and  intellectual  strain,  went  back  into  the  station. 

They  had  got  the  number  of  their  cab  from  the 
policeman  who  stands  at  the  door  of  all  large  German 
stations  and  supplies  the  traveller  with  a  metallic  check 
for  the  sort  of  vehicle  he  demands.  They  were  not 
proud,  but  it  seemed  best  not  to  risk  a  second-class 
cab  in  a  strange  city,  and  when  their  first-class  cab 
came  creaking  and  limping  out  of  the  rank,  they  saw 
how  wise  they  had  been,  if  one  of  the  second  class 
could  have  been  worse. 


128          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

As  they  rattled  away  from  the  station  they  saw  yet 
another  kind  of  turnout,  which  they  were  destined  to 
see  more  and  more  in  the  German  lands.  It  was  that 
team  of  a  woman  harnessed  with  a  dog  to  a  cart  which 
the  women  of  no  other  country  can  see  without  a  sense 
of  personal  insult.  March  tried  to  take  the  humorous 
view,  and  complained  that  they  had  not  been  offered 
the  choice  of  such  an  equipage  by  the  policeman,  but 
his  wife  would  not  be  amused.*  She  said  that  no 
country  which  suffered  such  a  thing  could  be  truly 
civilized,  though  he  made  her  observe  that  no  city  in 
the  world,  except  Boston  or  Brooklyn,  was  probably 
so  thoroughly  trolleyed  as  Hamburg.  The  hum  of 
the  electric  car  was  everywhere,  and  everywhere  the 
shriek  of  the  wires  overhead ;  batlike  flights  of  con 
necting  plates  traversed  all  the  perspectives  through 
which  they  drove  to  the  pleasant  little  hotel  they  had 
chosen. 


XX. 

ON  one  hand  their  windows  looked  toward  a  basin  of 
the  Elbe,  where  stately  white  swans  were  sailing ;  and 
on  the  other  to  the  new  Rathhaus,  over  the  trees  that 
deeply  shaded  the  perennial  mud  of  a  cold,  dim  public 
garden,  where  water-proof  old  women  and  impervious 
nurses  sat,  and  children  played  in  the  long  twilight  of 
the  sour,  rain-soaked  summer  of  the  fatherland.  It 
was  all  picturesque,  and  within-doors  there  was  the 
novelty  of  the  meagre  carpets  and  stalwart  furniture 
of  the  Germans,  and  their  beds,  which  after  so  many 
ages  of  Anglo-Saxon  satire  remain  immutably  prepos 
terous.  They  are  apparently  imagined  for  the  stature 
of  sleepers  who  have  shortened  as  they  broadened ; 
their  pillows  are  triangularly  shaped  to  bring  the  chin 
tight  upon  the  breast  under  the  bloated  feather  bulk 
which  is  meant  for  covering,  and  which  rises  over  the 
sleeper  from  a  thick  substratum  of  cotton  coverlet, 
neatly  buttoned  into  the  upper  sheet,  with  the  effect 
of  a  portly  waistcoat. 

The  hotel  was  illumined  by  the  kindly  splendor  of 
the  uniformed  portier,  who  had  met  the  travellers  at 
the  door,  like  a  glowing  vision  of  the  past,  and  a 
I 


13O  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

friendly  air  diffused  itself  through  the  whole  house. 
At  the  dinner,  which,  if  not  so  cheap  as  they  had 
somehow  hoped,  was  by  no  means  bad,  they  took 
counsel  with  the  English-speaking  waiter  as  to  what 
entertainment  Hamburg  could  offer  for  the  evening, 
and  by  the  time  they  had  drunk  their  coffee  they  had 
courage  for  the  Circus  Renz,  which  seemed  to  be  all 
there  was. 

The  conductor  of  the  trolley-car,  which  they  hailed 
at  the  street  corner,  stopped  it  and  got  off  the  plat 
form,  and  stood  in  the  street  until  they  were  safely 
aboard,  without  telling  them  to  step  lively,  or  pulling 
them  up  the  steps,  or  knuckling  them  in  the  back  to 
make  them  move  forward.  He  let  them  get  fairly 
seated  before  he  started  the  car,  and  so  lost  the  fun 
of  seeing  them  lurch  and  stagger  violently,  and  wildly 
clutch  each  other  for  support.  The  Germans  have  so 
little  sense  of  humor  that  probably  no  one  in  the  car 
would  have  been  amused  to  see  the  strangers  flung 
upon  the  floor.  No  one  apparently  found  it  droll 
that  the  conductor  should  touch  his  cap  to  them  when 
he  asked  for  their  fare ;  no  one  smiled  at  their  efforts 
to  make  him  understand  where  they  wished  to  go,  and 
he  did  not  wink  at  the  other  passengers  in  trying  to 
find  out.  Whenever  the  car  stopped  he  descended 
first,  and  did  not  remount  till  the  dismounting  passen 
ger  had  taken  time  to  get  well  away  from  it.  When 
the  Marches  got  into  the  wrong  car  in  coming  home, 
and  were  carried  beyond  their  street,  the  conductor 
would  not  take  their  fare. 

The  kindly  civility  which  environed  them  went  far 
to  alleviate  the  inclemency  of  the  climate ;  it  began  to 


•     THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  131 

rain  as  soon  as  they  left  the  shelter  of  the  car,  but  a 
citizen  of  whom  they  asked  the  nearest  way  to  the 
Circus  Renz  was  so  anxious  to  have  them  go  aright 
that  they  did  not  mind  the  wet,  and  the  thought  of 
his  goodness  embittered  March's  self-reproach  for 
under-tipping  the  sort  of  gorgeous  heyduk,  with  a 
staff  like  a  drum-major's,  who  left  his  place  at  the 
circus  door  to  get  their  tickets.  He  brought  them 
back  with  a  magnificent  bow,  and  was  then  as  visibly 
disappointed  with  the  share  of  the  change  returned  to 
him  as  a  child  would  have  been. 

They  went  to  their  places  with  the  sting  of  his  dis 
appointment  rankling  in  their  hearts.  "One  ought 
always  to  overpay  them,"  March  sighed,  "  and  I  will 
do  it  from  this  time  forth ;  we  shall  not  be  much  the 
poorer  for  it.  That  heyduk  is  not  going  to  get  off 
with  less  than  a  mark  when  we  come  out."  As  an 
earnest  of  his  good  faith  he  gave  the  old  man  who 
showed  them  to  their  box  a  tip  that  made  him  bow 
double,  and  he  bought  every  conceivable  libretto  and 
play-bill  offered  him  at  prices  fixed  by  his  remorse. 
"One  ought  to  do  it,"  he  said.  "We  are  of  the 
quality  of  good  geniuses  to  these  poor  souls ;  we  are 
Fortune — in  disguise ;  we  are  money  found  in  the 
road.  It  is  an  accursed  system,  but  they  are  more  its 
victims  than  we."  His  wife  quite  agreed  with  him, 
and  with  the  same  good  conscience  between  them  they 
gave  themselves  up  to  the  pure  joy  which  the  circus, 
of  all  ir.odern  entertainments,  seems  alone  to  inspire. 
The  house  was  full  from  floor  to  roof  when  they  came 
in,  and  every  one  was  intent  upon  the  two  Spanish 


132  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.     , 

clowns,  Lui-Lui  and  Soltamontes,  whose  drolleries 
spoke  the  universal  language  of  circus  humor,  and 
needed  no  translation  into  either  German  or  English. 
They  had  missed  by  an  event  or  two  the  more  patri 
otic  attraction  of  "  Miss  Darlings,  the  american  Star," 
as  she  was  billed  in  English,  but  they  were  in  time 
for  one  of  those  equestrian  performances  which  leave 
the  spectator  almost  exanimate  from  their  proltxity, 
and  the  pantomimic  piece  which  closed  the  evening. 

This  was  not  given  until  nearly  the  whole  house  had 
gone  out  and  stayed  itself  with  beer  and  cheese  and 
ham  and  sausage,  in  the  restaurant  which  purveys 
these  light  refreshments  in  the  summer  theatres  all 
over  Germany.  When  the  people  came  back  gorged 
to  the  throat,  they  sat  down  in  the  right  mood  to 
enjoy  the  allegory  of  "  the  Enchantedmountain's 
Fantasy ;  the  Mountainepisodes ;  the  Highinteresting 
Sledges-Courses  on  the  Steep  Acclivities;  the  Amaz 
ing  Up-rush  of  the  thenceplunging  Four  Trains,  which 
arrive  with  Lightningsswiftness  at  the  Top  of  the 
over-40-feet-high  Mountain — the  Highest  Triumph  of 
the  To-day's  Circus- Art;  the  Sledgejourney  in  the 
Wizardmountain,  and  the  Fairy  Ballet  in  the  Realm 
of  the  Ghostprince,  with  Gold  and  Silver,  Jewel, 
Bloomghosts,  Gnomes,  Gnomesses,  and  Dwarfs,  in 
never-till-now-seen  Splendor  of  Costume."  The 
Marches  were  happy  in  this  allegory,  and  happier  in 
the  ballet,  which  is  everywhere  delightfully  innocent, 
and  which  here  appealed  with  the  large  flat  feet  and  the 
plain  good  faces  of  the  coryphees  to  all  that  was  sim 
plest  and  sweetest  in  their  natures.  They  could  not 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  133 

have  resisted,  if  they  had  wished,  that  environment 
of  good-will ;  and  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  disap 
pointed  heyduk,  they  would  have  got  home  from  their 
evening  at  the  Circus  Renz  without  a  pang. 

They  looked  for  him  everywhere  when  they  came 
out,  but  he  had  vanished,  and  they  were  left  with  a 
regret  which,  if  unavailing,  was  not  too  poignant.  In 
spite  of  it  they  had  still  an  exhilaration  in  their  release 
from  the  companionship  of  their  fellow-voyagers 
which  they  analyzed  as  the  psychical  revulsion  from 
the  strain  of  too  great  interest  in  them.  Mrs.  March 
declared  that  for  the  present,  at  least,  she  wanted 
Europe  quite  to  themselves;  and  she  said  that  not 
even  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  Burnamy  and  Miss 
Triscoe  come  into  their  box  together  would  she  have 
suffered  an  American  trespass  upon  their  exclusive 
possession  of  the  Circus  Renz. 

In  the  audience  she  had  seen  German  officers  for 
the  first  time  in  Hamburg,  and  she  meant,  if  unre 
mitting  question  could  bring  out  the  truth,  to  know 
why  she  had  not  met  any  others.  She  had  read  much 
of  the  prevalence  and  prepotence  of  the  German  offi 
cers  who  would  try  to  push  her  off  the  sidewalk,  till 
they  realized  that  she  was  an  American  woman,  and 
would  then  submit  to  her  inflexible  purpose  of  holding 
it.  But  she  had  been  some  seven  or  eight  hours  in 
Hamburg,  and  nothing  of  the  kind  had  happened  to 
her,  perhaps  because  she  had  hardly  yet  walked  a 
block  in  the  city  streets,  but  perhaps  also  because 
there  seemed  to  be  very  few  officers  or  military  o{ 
any  kind  in  Hamburg. 


XXI. 

THEIR  absence  was  plausibly  explained,  the  next 
morning,  by  the  young  German  friend  who  came  in  to 
see  the  Marches  at  breakfast.  He  said  Hamburg  had 
been  so  long  a  free  republic  that  the  presence  of  a 
large  imperial  garrison  was  distasteful  to  the  people, 
and  as  a  matter  of  fact  there  were  very  few  soldiers 
quartered  there,  whether  the  authorities  chose  to  in 
dulge  the  popular  grudge  or  not.  He  was  himself  in 
a  joyful  flutter  of  spirits,  for  he  had  just  the  day  be 
fore  got  his  release  from  military  service.  He  gave 
them  a  notion  of  what  the  rapture  of  a  man  reprieved 
from  death  might  be,  and  he  was  as  radiantly  happy 
in  the  ill  health  which  had  got  him  his  release  as  if  it 
had  been  the  greatest  blessing  of  heaven.  He  bub 
bled  over  with  smiling  regrets  that  he  should  be  leav 
ing  his  home  for  the  first  stage  of  the  journey  which 
he  was  to  take  in  search  of  strength,  just  as  they  had 
come,  and  he  pressed  them  to  say  if  there  were  not 
something  that  he  could  do  for  them. 

"  Yes,"  said  Mrs.  March,  with  a  promptness  sur 
prising  to  her  husband,  who  could  think  of  nothing; 
"  tell  us  where  Heinrich  Heine  lived  when  he  was  in 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  135 

Hamburg.     My  husband  has  always  had  a  great  pas 
sion  for  him  and  wants  to  look  him  up  everywhere." 

March  had  forgotten  that  Heine  ever  lived  in  Ham 
burg,  and  the  young  man  had  apparently  never  known 
it.  His  face  fell ;  he  wished  to  make  Mrs.  March 
believe  that  it  was  only  Heine's  uncle  who  had  lived 
there ;  but  she  was  firm ;  and  when  he  had  asked 
among  the  hotel  people  he  came  back  gladly  owning 
that  he  was  wrong,  and  that  the  poet  used  to  live  in 
Konigstrasse,  which  was  very  near  by,  and  where  they 
could  easily  know  the  house  by  his  bust  set  in  its 
front.  The  portier  and  the  head  waiter  shared  his 
ecstasy  in  so  easily  obliging  the  friendly  American 
pair,  and  joined  him  in  minutely  instructing  the  driver 
when  they  shut  them  into  their  carriage. 

They  did  not  know  that  his  was  almost  the  only 
laughing  face  they  should  see  in  the  serious  German 
Empire  ;  just  as  they  did  not  know  that  it  rained  there 
every  day.  As  they  drove  off  in  the  gray  drizzle  with 
the  unfounded  hope  that  sooner  or  later  the  weather 
would  be  fine,  they  bade  their  driver  be  very  slow  in 
taking  them  through  Konigstrasse,  so  that  he  should 
by  no  means  miss  Heine's  dwelling,  and  he  duly  stop 
ped  in  front  of  a  house  bearing  the  promised  bust. 
They  dismounted  in  order  to  revere  it  more  at  their 
ease,  but  the  bust  proved,  by  an  irony  bitterer  than 
the  sick,  heart-breaking,  brilliant  Jew  could  have  im 
agined  in  his  cruelest  moment,  to  be  that  of  the  Ger 
man  Milton,  the  respectable  poet  Klopstock,  whom 
Heine  abhorred  and  mocked  so  pitilessly. 

In  fact  it  was  here  that  the  good,  much-forgotten 


136          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

Klopstock  dwelt,  when  he  came  home  to  live  with  a 
comfortable  pension  from  the  Danish  government; 
and  the  pilgrims  to  the  mistaken  shrine  went  asking 
about  among  the  neighbors  in  Konigstrasse  for  some 
manner  of  house  where  Heine  might  have  lived ;  they 
would  have  been  willing  to  accept  a  flat,  or  any  sort 
of  two-pair  back.  The  neighbors  were  somewhat 
moved  by  the  anxiety  of  the  strangers ;  but  they  were 
not  so  much  moved  as  neighbors  in  Italy  would  have 
been.  There  was  no  eager  and  smiling  sympathy  in 
the  little  crowd  that  gathered  to  see  what  was  going 
on ;  they  were  patient  of  question  and  kind  in  their 
helpless  response,  but  they  were  not  gay.  To  a  man 
they  had  not  heard  of  Heine ;  even  the  owner  of  a 
sausage  and  blood-pudding  shop  across  the  way  had 
not  heard  of  him ;  the  clerk  of  a  stationer-arid-book- 
seller's  next  to  the  butcher's  had  heard  of  him,  but  he 
had  never  heard  that  he  lived  in  Konigstrasse;  he 
never  had  heard  where  he  lived  in  Hamburg. 

The  pilgrims  to  the  fraudulent  shrine  got  back  into 
their  carriage,  and  drove  sadly  away,  instructing  their 
driver  with  the  rigidity  which  their  limited  German 
favored,  not  to  let  any  house  with  a  bust  in  its  front 
escape  him.  He  promised,  and  took  his  course  out 
through  Konigstrasse,  and  suddenly  they  found  them 
selves  in  a  world  of  such  eld  and  quaintness  that  they 
forgot  Heine  as  completely  as  any  of  his  countrymen 
had  done.  They  were  in  steep  and  narrow  streets, 
that  crooked  and  turned  with  no  apparent  purpose  of 
leading  anywhere,  among  houses  that  looked  down 
upon  them  with  an  astonished  stare  from  the  leaden- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  187 

sashed  windows  of  their  timber-laced  gables.  The 
facades  with  their  lattices  stretching  in  bands  quite 
across  them,  and  with  their  steep  roofs  climbing  high 
in  successions  of  blinking  dormers,  were  more  richly 
mediaeval  than  anything  the  travellers  had  ever 
dreamt  of  before,  and  they  feasted  themselves  upon 
the  unimagined  picturesqueness  with  a  leisurely  mi 
nuteness  which  brought  responsive  gazers  everywhere 
to  the  windows;  windows  were  set  ajar;  shop  doors 
were  darkened  by  curious  figures  from  within,  and  the 
traffic  of  the  tortuous  alleys  was  interrupted  by  their 
progress.  They  could  not  have  said  which  delighted 
them  more — the  houses  in  the  immediate  foreground, 
or  the  sharp  high  gables  in  the  perspectives  and  the 
background ;  but  all  were  like  the  painted  scenes  of  the 
stage,  and  they  had  a  pleasant  difficulty  in  realizing 
that  they  were  not  persons  in  some  romantic  drama. 

The  illusion  remained  with  them  and  qualified  the 
impression  which  Hamburg  made  by  her  much-trol- 
leyed  Bostonian  effect ;  by  the  decorous  activity  and 
Parisian  architecture  of  her  business  streets ;  by  the 
turmoil  of  her  quays,  and  the  innumerable  masts  and 
chimneys  of  her  shipping.  At  the  heart  of  all  was 
that  quaintness,  that  picturesqueness  of  the  past, 
which  embodied  the  spirit  of  the  old  Hanseatic  city, 
and  seemed  the  expression  of  the  home-side  of  her 
history.  The  sense  of  this  gained  strength  from  such 
slight  study  of  her  annals  as  they  afterwards  made, 
and  assisted  the  digestion  of  some  morsels  of  tough 
statistics.  In  the  shadow  of  those  Gothic  houses  the 
fact  that  Hamburg  was  one  of  the  greatest  coffee 


138  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

marts  and  money  marts  of  the  world  had  a  romantic 
glamour;  and  the  fact  that  in  the  four  years  from 
1870  till  1874  a  quarter  of  a  million  emigrants  sailed 
on  her  ships  for  the  United  States  seemed  to  stretch 
a  nerve  of  kindred  feeling  from  those  mediaeval  streets 
through  the  whole  shabby  length  of  Third  Avenue. 

It  was  perhaps  in  this  glamour,  or  this  feeling  of 
commercial  solidarity,  that  March  went  to  have  a  look 
at  the  Hamburg  Bourse,  in  the  beautiful  new  Rath- 
haus.  It  was  not  undergoing  repairs,  it  was  too  new 
for  that ;  but  it  was  in  construction,  and  so  it  fulfilled 
the  function  of  a  public  edifice,  in  withholding  its 
entire  interest  from  the  stranger.  He  could  not  get 
into  the  Senate-Chamber ;  but  the  Bourse  was  free  to 
him,  and  when  he  stepped  within,  it  rose  at  him  with 
a  roar  of  voices  and  of  feet  like  the  New  York  Stock 
Exchange.  The  spectacle  was  not  so  frantic  ;  people 
were  not  shaking  their  fists  or  fingers  in  each  other's 
noses ;  but  they  were  all  wild  in  the  tamer  German 
way,  and  he  was  glad  to  mount  from  the  Bourse  to 
the  poor  little  art  gallery  upstairs,  and  to  shut  out  its 
clamor.  He  was  not  so  glad  when  he  looked  round 
on  these,  his  first,  examples  of  modern  German  art. 
The  custodian  led  him  gently  about  and  said  which 
things  were  for  sale,  and  it  made  his  heart  ache  to  see 
how  bad  they  were,  and  to  think  that,  bad  as  they 
were,  he  could  not  buy  any  of  them. 


XXII. 

IN  the  start  from  Cuxhaven  the  passengers  had  the 
irresponsible  ease  of  people  ticketed  through,  and  the 
steamship  company  had  still  the  charge  of  their  bag 
gage.  But  when  the  Marches  left  Hamburg  for  Leip- 
sic  (where  they  had  decided  to  break  the  long  pull  to 
Carlsbad),  all  the  anxieties  of  European  travel,  dimly 
remembered  from  former  European  days,  offered 
themselves  for  recognition.  A  porter  vanished  with 
their  hand-baggage  before  they  could  note  any  trait 
in  him  for  identification;  other  porters  made  away 
with  their  trunks;  and  the  interpreter  who  helped 
March  buy  his  tickets,  with  a  vocabulary  of  strictly 
railroad  English,  had  to  help  him  find  the  pieces  in 
the  baggage-room,  curiously  estranged  in  a  mountain 
of  alien  boxes.  One  official  weighed  them ;  another 
obliged  him  to  pay  as  much  in  freight  as  for  a  third 
passenger,  and  gave  him  an  illegible  scrap  of  paper 
which  recorded  their  number  and  destination.  The 
interpreter  and  the  porters  took  their  fees  with  a  pro 
fessional  effect  of  dissatisfaction,  and  he  went  to  wait 
with  his  wife  amidst  the  smoking  and  eating  and 
drinking  in  the  restaurant.  They  burst  through  with 


140  THEIR   SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

the  rest  when  the  doors  were  opened  to  the  train,  and 
followed  a  glimpse  of  the  porter  with  their  hand-bags, 
as  he  ran  down  the  platform,  still  bent  upon  escaping 
them,  and  brought  him  to  bay  at  last  in  a  car  where 
he  had  got  very  good  seats  for  them,  and  sank  into 
their  places,  hot  and  humiliated  by  their  needless  tu 
mult. 

As  they  cooled,  they  recovered  their  self-respect, 
and  renewed  a  youthful  joy  in  some  of  the  long- 
estranged  facts.  The  road  was  rougher  than  the  roads 
at  home ;  but  for  much  less  money  they  had  the  com 
fort,  without  the  unavailing  splendor,  of  a  Pullman  in 
their  second-class  carriage.  Mrs.  March  had  expected 
to  be  used  with  the  severity  on  the  imperial  railroads 
which  she  had  failed  to  experience  from  the  military 
on  the  Hamburg  sidewalks,  but  nothing  could  be 
kindlier  than  the  whole  management  toward  her.  Her 
fellow-travellers  were  not  lavish  of  their  rights,  as 
Americans  are ;  what  they  got,  that  they  kept ;  and  in 
the  run  from  Hamburg  to  Leipsic  she  had  several 
occasions  to  observe  that  no  German,  however  young 
or  robust,  dreams  of  offering  a  better  place,  if  he  has 
one,  to  a  lady  in  grace  to  her  sex  or  age ;  if  they  got 
into  a  carriage  too  late  to  secure  a  forward-looking 
seat,  she  rode  backward  to  the  end  of  that  stage.  But 
if  they  appealed  to  their  fellow-travellers  for  informa 
tion  about  changes,  or  stops,  or  any  of  the  little  facts 
that  they  wished  to  make  sure  of,  they  were  enlight 
ened  past  possibility  of  error.  At  the  point  where 
they  might  have  gone  wrong  the  explanations  were 
renewed  with  a  thoughtfulness  which  showed  that 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  141 

their  anxieties  had  not  been  forgotten.  She  said  she 
could  not  see  how  any  people  could  be  both  so  selfish 
and  so  sweet,  and  her  husband  seized  the  advantage 
of  saying  something  offensive : 

"  You  women  are  so  pampered  in  America  that  you 
are  astonished  when  you  are  treated  in  Europe  like 
the  mere  human  beings  you  are." 

She  answered  with  unexpected  reasonableness: 
"  Yes,  there's  something  in  that ;  but  when  the 
Germans  have  taught  us  how  despicable  we  are  as 
women,  why  do  they  treat  us  so  well  as  human  be 
ings?" 

This  was  at  ten  o'clock,  after  she  had  ridden  back 
ward  a  long  way,  and  at  last,  within  an  hour  of  Leip- 
sic,  had  got  a  seat  confronting  him.  The  darkness 
had  now  hidden  the  landscape,  but  the  impression  of 
its  few  simple  elements  lingered  pleasantly  in  their 
sense:  long  levels,  densely  wooded  with  the  precise, 
severely  disciplined  German  forests,  and-  checkered 
with  fields  of  grain  and  grass,  soaking  under  the  thin 
rain  that  from  time  to  time  varied  the  thin  sunshine. 
The  villages  and  peasants'  cottages  were  notably  few ; 
but  there  was  here  and  there  a  classic  or  a  gothic 
villa,  which,  at  one  point,  an  English-speaking  young 
lady  turned  from  her  Tauchnitz  novel  to  explain  as 
the  seat  of  some  country  gentleman  ;  the  land  was  in 
large  holdings,  and  this  accounted  for  the  sparsity  of 
villages  and  cottages. 

She  then  said  that  she  was  a  German  teacher  of 
English,  in  Hamburg,  and  was  going  home  to  Potsdam 
for  a  visit.  She  seemed  like  a  German  girl  out  of 


142  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

The  Initials,  and  in  return  for  this  favor  Mrs.  March 
tried  to  invest  herself  with  some  romantic  interest  as 
an  American.  She  failed  to  move  the  girl's  fancy, 
even  after  she  had  bestowed  on  her  an  immense  bunch 
of  roses  which  the  young  German  friend  in  Hamburg 
had  sent  to  them  just  before  they  left  their  hotel. 
She  failed,  later,  on  the  same  ground  with  the  plea 
sant-looking  English  woman  who  got  into  their  car 
riage  at  Magdeburg,  and  talked  over  the  London 
Illustrated  News  with  an  English-speaking  Fraulein 
in  her  company ;  she  readily  accepted  the  fact  of 
Mrs.  March's  nationality,  but  found  nothing  wonder 
ful  in  it,  apparently ;  and  when  she  left  the  train  she 
left  Mrs.  March  to  recall  with  fond  regret  the  old 
days  in  Italy  when  she  first  came  abroad,  and  could 
make  a  whole  carriage  full  of  Italians  break  into  ohs 
and  ahs  by  saying  that  she  was  an  American,  and 
telling  how  far  she  had  come  across  the  sea. 

"  Yes,"  March  assented,  "  but  that  was  a  great  while 
ago,  and  Americans  were  much  rarer  than  they  are 
now  in  Europe.  The  Italians  are  so  much  more  sym 
pathetic  than  the  Germans  and  English,  and  they  saw 
that  you  wanted  to  impress  them.  Heaven  knows 
how  little  they  cared !  And  then,  you  were  a  very 
pretty  young  girl  in  those  days ;  or  at  least  I  thought 
so." 

"  Yes,"  she  sighed,  "  and  now  I'm  a  plain  old 
woman." 

"  Oh,  not  quite  so  bad  as  that." 

"  Yes,  I  am  !  Do  you  think  they  would  have  cared 
more  if  it  had  been  Miss  Triscoe  ? " 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  143 

"  Not  so  much  as  if  it  had  been  the  pivotal  girl. 
They  would  have  found  her  much  more  their  ideal  of 
the  American  woman ;  and  even  she  would  have  had 
to  have  been  here  thirty  years  ago." 

She  laughed  a  little  ruefully.  "  Well,  at  any  rate, 
I  should  like  to  know  how  Miss  Triscoe  would  have 
affected  them." 

"  I  should  much  rather  know  what  sort  of  life  that 
English  woman  is  living  here  with  her  German  hus 
band  ;  I  fancied  she  had  married  rank.  I  could 
imagine  how  dull  it  must  be  in  her  little  Saxon  town, 
from  the  way  she  clung  to  her  Illustrated  News,  and 
explained  the  pictures  of  the  royalties  to  her  friend. 
There  is  romance  for  you  !  " 

They  arrived  at  Leipsic  fresh  and  cheerful  after 
their  five  hours'  journey,  and  as  in  a  spell  of  their 
travelled  youth  they  drove  up  through  the  academic 
old  town,  asleep  under  its  dimly  clouded  sky,  and 
silent  except  for  the  trolley-cars  that  prowled  its  streets 
with  their  feline  purr,  and  broke  at  times  into  a  long, 
shrill  caterwaul.  A  sense  of  the  past  imparted  itself 
to  the  well-known  encounter  with  the  portier  and  the 
head  waiter  at  the  hotel  door,  to  the  payment  of  the 
driver,  to  the  endeavor  of  the  secretary  to  have  them 
take  the  most  expensive  rooms  in  the  house,  and  to 
his  compromise  upon  the  next  most,  where  they  found 
themselves  in  great  comfort,  with  electric  lights  and 
bells,  and  a  quick  succession  of  fee-taking  call-boys  in 
dress-coats  too  large  for  them.  The  spell  was  deep 
ened  by  the  fact,  which  March  kept  at  the  bottom  of 
his  consciousness  for  the  present,  that  one  of  their 


144  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

trunks  was  missing.  This  linked  him  more  closely 
to  the  travel  of  other  days,  and  he  spent  the  next 
forenoon  in  a  telegraphic  search  for  the  estray,  with 
emotions  tinged  by  the  melancholy  of  recollection, 
but  in  the  security  that  since  it  was  somewhere  in  the 
keeping  of  the  state  railway,  it  would  be  finally  re 
stored  to  him. 


XXIII. 

THEIR  windows,  as  they  saw  in  the  morning,  looked 
into  a  large  square  of  aristocratic  physiognomy,  and 
of  a  Parisian  effect  in  architecture,  which  afterwards 
proved  characteristic  of  the  town,  if  not  quite  so 
characteristic  as  to  justify  the  passion  of  Leipsic  for 
calling  itself  Little  Paris.  The  prevailing  tone  was 
of  a  gray  tending  to  the  pale  yellow  of  the  Tauchnitz 
editions  with  which  the  place  is  more  familiarly  asso 
ciated  in  the  minds  of  English-speaking  travellers.  It 
was  rather  more  sombre  than  it  might  have  been  if 
the  weather  had  been  fair ;  but  a  quiet  rain  was  falling 
dreamily  that  morning,  and  the  square  was  provided 
with  a  fountain  which  continued  to  dribble  in  the  rare 
moments  when  the  rain  forgot  itself.  The  place  was 
better  shaded  than  need  be  in  that  sunless  land  by 
the  German  elms  that  look  like  ours,  and  it  was  suffi 
ciently  stocked  with  German  statues,  that  look  like  no 
others.  It  had  a  monument,  too,  of  the  sort  with 
which  German  art  has  everywhere  disfigured  the  kind 
ly  fatherland  since  the  war  with  France.  These  mon- 


14:6  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

uments,  though  they  are  so  very  ugly,  have  a  sort  of 
pathos  as  records  of  the  only  war  in  which  Germany 
unaided  has  triumphed  against  a  foreign  foe,  but  they 
are  as  tiresome  as  all  such  memorial  pomps  must  be. 
It  is  not  for  the  victories  of  a  people  that  any  other 
people  can  care.  The  wars  come  and  go  in  blood  and 
tears;  but  whether  they  are  bad  wars,  or  what  are 
comically  called  good  wars,  they  are  of  one  effect  in 
death  and  sorrow,  and  their  fame  is  an  offence  to  all 
men  not  concerned  in  them,  till  time  has  softened  it 
to  a  memory 

"Of  old,  unhappy,  far-off  things, 
And  battles  long  ago." 

It  was  for  some  such  reason  that  while  the  Marches 
turned  with  instant  satiety  from  the  swelling  and 
strutting  sculpture  which  celebrated  the  Leipsic  heroes 
of  the  war  of  1870,  they  had  heart  for  those  of  the 
war  of  1813;  and  after  their  noonday  dinner  they 
drove  willingly,  in  a  pause  of  the  rain,  out  between 
yellowing  harvests  of  wheat  and  oats  to  the  field 
where  Napoleon  was  beaten  by  the  Russians,  Austri- 
ans  and  Prussians  (it  always  took  at  least  three  na 
tions  to  beat  the  little  wretch)  fourscore  years  before. 
Yet  even  there  Mrs.  March  was  really  more  concerned 
for  the  sparsity  of  corn-flowers  in  the  grain,  which  in 
their  modern  character  of  Kaiserblumen  she  found 
strangely  absent  from  their  loyal  function  ;  and  March 
was  more  taken  with  the  notion  of  the  little  gardens 
which  his  guide  told  him  the  citizens  could  have  in 
the  suburbs  of  Leipsic  and  enjoy  at  any  trolley-car 
distance  from  their  homes.  He  saw  certain  of  these 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  147 

gardens  in  groups,  divided  by  low,  unenvious  fences, 
and  sometimes  furnished  with  summer-houses,  where 
the  tenant  could  take  his  pleasure  in  the  evening  air, 
with  his  family.  The  guide  said  he  had  such  a  garden 
himself,  at  a  rent  of  seven  dollars  a  year,  where  he 
raised  vegetables  and  flowers,  and  spent  his  peaceful 
leisure ;  and  March  fancied  that  on  the  simple  domes 
tic  side  of  their  life,  which  this  fact  gave  him  a 
glimpse  of,  the  Germans  were  much  more  engaging 
than  in  their  character  of  victors  over  either  the  First 
or  the  Third  Napoleon.  But  probably  they  would 
not  have  agreed  with  him,  and  probably  nations  will 
go  on  making  themselves  cruel  and  tiresome  till  hu 
manity  at  last  prevails  over  nationality. 

He  could  have  put  the  case  to  the  guide  himself ; 
but  though  the  guide  was  imaginably  liberated  to  a 
cosmopolitan  conception  of  things  by  three  years'  ser 
vice  as  waiter  in  English  hotels,  where  he  learned  the 
language,  he  might  not  have  risen  to  this.  He  would 
have  tried,  for  he  was  a  willing  and  kindly  soul, 
though  he  was  not  a  valet  de  place  by  profession. 
There  seemed  in  fact  but  one  of  that  useless  and 
amusing  race  (which  is  everywhere  falling  into  decay 
through  the  rivalry  of  the  perfected  Baedeker,)  left 
in  Leipsic,  and  this  one  was  engaged,  so  that  the 
Marches  had  to  devolve  upon  their  ex-waiter,  who  was 
now  the  keeper  of  a  small  restaurant.  He  gladly 
abandoned  his  business  to  the  care  of  his  wife,  in 
order  to  drive  handsomely  about  in  his  best  clothes, 
with  strangers  who  did  not  exact  too  much  knowledge 
from  him.  In  his  zeal  to  do  something  he  possessed 


148  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

himself  of  March's  overcoat  when  they  dismounted  at 
their  first  gallery,  and  let  fall  from  its  pocket  his  pro 
phylactic  flask  of  brandy,  which  broke  with  a  loud 
crash  on  the  marble  floor  in  the  presence  of  several 
masterpieces,  and  perfumed  the  whole  place.  The 
masterpieces  were  some  excellent  works  of  Luke 
Kranach,  who  seemed  the  only  German  painter  worth 
looking  at  when  there  were  any  Dutch  or  Italian  pict 
ures  near,  but  the  travellers  forgot  the  name  and  nat 
ure  of  the  Kranachs,  and  remembered  afterwards  only 
the  shattered  fragments  of  the  brandy-flask,  just  how 
they  looked  on  the  floor,  and  the  fumes,  how  they 
smelt,  that  rose  from  the  ruin. 

It  might  have  been  a  warning  protest  of  the  verac 
ities  against  what  they  were  doing ;  but  the  madness 
of  sight-seeing,  which  spoils  travel,  was  on  them,  and 
they  delivered  themselves  up  to  it  as  they  used  in 
their  ignorant  youth,  though  now  they  knew  its  futil 
ity  so  well.  They  spared  themselves  nothing  that 
they  had  time  for,  that  day,  and  they  felt  falsely 
guilty  for  their  omissions,  as  if  they  really  had  been 
duties  to  art  and  history  which  must  be  discharged, 
like  obligations  to  one's  maker  and  one's  neighbor. 

They  had  a  touch  of  genuine  joy  in  the  presence 
of  the  beautiful  old  Rathhaus,  and  they  were  sensible 
of  something  like  a  genuine  emotion  in  passing  the 
famous  and  venerable  university  ;  the  very  air  of  Lcip- 
sic  is  redolent  of  printing  and  publication,  which 
appealed  to  March  in  his  quality  of  editor ;  and  they 
could  not  fail  of  an  impression  of  the  quiet  beauty  of 
the  town,  with  its  regular  streets  of  houses  breaking 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  149 

into  suburban  villas  of  an  American  sort,  and  inter 
sected  with  many  canals,  which  in  the  intervals  of  the 
rain  were  eagerly  navigated  by  pleasure  boats,  and 
contributed  to  the  general  picturesqueness  by  their 
frequent  bridges,  even  during  the  drizzle.  There 
seemed  to  be  no  churches  to  do,  and  as  it  was  a  Sun 
day,  the  galleries  were  so  early  closed  against  them 
that  they  were  making  a  virtue  as  well  as  a  pleasure 
of  the  famous  scene  of  Napoleon's  first  great  defeat. 

By  a  concert  between  their  guide  and  driver  their 
carriage  drew  up  at  the  little  inn  by  the  road-side, 
which  is  also  a  museum  stocked  with  relics  from  the 
battle-field,  and  with  objects  of  interest  relating  to  it. 
Old  muskets,  old  swords,  old  shoes  and  old  coats, 
trumpets,  drums,  gun-carriages,  wheels,  helmets,  can 
non  balls,  grape-shot,  and  all  the  murderous  rubbish 
which  battles  come  to  at  last,  with  proclamations, 
autographs,  caricatures  and  likenesses  of  Napoleon, 
and  effigies  of  all  the  other  generals  engaged,  and 
miniatures  and  jewels  of  their  womenkind,  filled  room 
after  room,  through  which  their  owner  vaunted  his 
way,  with  a  loud  pounding  voice  and  a  bad  breath. 
When  he  wished  them  to  enjoy  some  gross  British 
satire  or  clumsy  German  gibe  at  Bonaparte's  expense, 
and  put  his  face  close  to  begin  the  laugh,  he  was 
something  so  terrible  that  March  left  the  place  with  a 
profound  if  not  a  reasoned  regret  that  the  French  had 
not  won  the  battle  of  Leipsic.  He  walked  away  mus 
ing  pensively  upon  the  traveller's  inadequacy  to  the 
ethics  of  history  when  a  breath  could  so  sway  him 
against  his  convictions;  but  even  after  he  had  cleansed 


150  THEIR    SILVER.   WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

his  lungs  with  some  deep  respirations  he  found  him 
self  still  a  Bonapartist  in  the  presence  of  that  stone 
on  the  rising  ground  where  Napoleon  sat  to  watch  the 
struggle  on  the  vast  plain,  and  see  his  empire  slipping 
through  his  blood-stained  fingers.  It  was  with  diffi 
culty  that  he  could  keep  from  revering  the  hat  and 
coat  which  are  sculptured  on  the  stone,  but  it  was  well 
that  he  succeeded,  for  he  could  not  make  out  then  or 
afterwards  whether  the  habiliments  represented  were 
really  Napoleon's  or  not,  and  they  might  have  turned 
out  to  be  Barclay  de  Tolly's. 

While  he  stood  trying  to  solve  this  question  of 
clothes  he  was  startled  by  the  apparition  of  a  man 
climbing  the  little  slope  from  the  opposite  quarter, 
.  and  advancing  toward  them.  He  wore  the  imperial 
crossed  by  the  pointed  mustache  once  so  familiar  to 
a  world  much  the  worse  for  them,  and  March  had  the 
shiver  of  a  fine  moment  in  which  he  fancied  the  Third 
Napoleon  rising  to  view  the  scene  where  the  First  had 
looked  his  coming  ruin  in  the  face. 

"  Why,  it's  Miss  Triscoe ! "  cried  his  wife,  and  be 
fore  March  had  noticed  the  approach  of  another  figure, 
the  elder  and  the  younger  lady  had  rushed  upon  each 
other,  and  encountered  with  a  kiss.  At  the  same 
time  the  visage  of  the  last  Emperor  resolved  itself  in 
to  the  face  of  General  Triscoe,  who  gave  March  his 
hand  in  a  more  tempered  greeting. 

The  ladies  began  asking  each  other  of  their  lives 
since  their  parting  two  days  before,  and  the  men 
strolled  a  few  paces  away  toward  the  distant  prospect 
of  Leipsic,  which  at  that  point  silhouettes  itself  in  a 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  151 

noble  stretch  of  roofs  and  spires  and  towers  against 
the  horizon. 

General  Triscoe  seemed  no  better  satisfied  with 
Germany  than  he  had  been  on  first  stepping  ashore  at 
Cuxhaven.  He  might  still  have  been  in  a  pout  with 
his  own  country,  but  as  yet  he  had  not  made  up  with 
any  other;  and  he  said,  "What  a  pity  Napoleon 
didn't  thrash  the  whole  dunderheaded  lot!  His  em 
pire  would  have  been  a  blessing  to  them,  and  they 
would  have  had  some  chance  of  being  civilized  under 
the  French.  All  this  unification  of  nationalities  is 
the  great  humbug  of  the  century.  Every  stupid  race 
thinks  it's  happy  because  it's  united,  and  civilization 
has  been  set  back  a  hundred  years  by  the  wars  that 
were  fought  to  bring  the  unions  about;  and  more  wars 
will  have  to  be  fought  to  keep  them  up.  What  a 
farce  it  is  !  What's  become  of  the  nationality  of  the 
Danes  in  Schleswig-Holstein,  or  the  French  in  the 
Rhine  Provinces,  or  the  Italians  in  Savoy  ? " 

March  had  thought  something  like  this  himself,  but 
to  have  it  put  by  General  Triscoe  made  it  offensive.  "  I 
don't  know.  Isn't  it  rather  quarrelling  with  the  course 
of  human  events  to  oppose  accomplished  facts  ?  The 
unifications  were  bound  to  be,  just  as  the  separations 
before  them  were.  And  so  far  they  have  made  for 
peace,  in  Europe  at  least,  and  peace  is  civilization. 
Perhaps  after  a  great  many  ages  people  will  come 
together  through  their  real  interests,  the  human  inter 
ests;  but  at  present  it  seems  as  if  nothing  but  a  ro 
mantic  sentiment  of  patriotism  can  unite  them.  By- 
and-by  they  may  find  that  there  is  nothing  in  it." 


152          THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

"  Perhaps,"  said  the  general,  discontentedly.  "  I 
don't  see  much  promise  of  any  kind  in  the  future." 

"Well,  I  don't  know.  When  you  think  of  the 
solid  militarism  of  Germany,  you  seem  remanded  to 
the  most  hopeless  moment  of  the  Roman  Empire ;  you 
think  nothing  can  break  such  a  force ;  but  my  guide 
says  that  even  in  Leipsic  the  Socialists  outnumber  all 
the  other  parties,  and  the  army  is  the  great  field  of 
the  Socialist  propaganda.  The  army  itself  may  be 
shaped  into  the  means  of  democracy — even  of  peace." 

"You're  very  optimistic,"  said  Triscoe,  curtly. 
"  As  I  read  the  signs,  we  are  not  far  from  universal 
war.  In  less  than  a  year  we  shall  make  the  break 
ourselves  in  a  war  with  Spain."  He  looked  very  fierce 
as  he  prophesied,  and  he  dotted  March  over  with  his 
staccato  glances. 

"  Well,  I'll  allow  that  if  Tammany  comes  in  this 
year,  we  shall  have  war  with  Spain.  You  can't  ask 
more  than  that,  General  Triscoe  ?  " 

Mrs.  March  and  Miss  Triscoe  had  not  said  a  word 
of  the  battle  of  Leipsic,  or  of  the  impersonal  interests 
which  it  suggested  to  the  men.  For  all  these,  they 
might  still  have  been  sitting  in  their  steamer  chairs 
on  the  promenade  of  the  Norumbia  at  a  period  which 
seemed  now  of  geological  remoteness.  The  girl  ac 
counted  for  not  being  in  Dresden  by  her  father's  hav 
ing  decided  not  to  go  through  Berlin  but  to  come  by 
way  of  Leipsic,  which  he  thought  they  had  better  see ; 
they  had  come  without  stopping  in  Hamburg.  They 
had  not  enjoyed  Leipsic  much ;  it  had  rained  the 
whole  day  before,  and  they  had  not  gone  out.  She 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  153 

asked  when  Mrs.  March  was  going  on  to  Carlsbad, 
and  Mrs.  March  answered,  the  next  morning ;  her  hus 
band  wished  to  begin  his  cure  at  once. 

Then  Miss  Triscoe  pensively  wondered  if  Carlsbad 
would  dd  her  father  any  good ;  and  Mrs.  March  dis 
creetly  inquired  General  Triscoe's  symptoms. 

"  Oh,  he  hasn't  any.  But  I  know  he  can't  be  well 
— with  his  gloomy  opinions." 

"  They  may  come  from  his  liver,"  said  Mrs.  March. 
"  Nearly  everything  of  that  kind  does.  I  know  that 
Mr.  March  has  been  terribly  depressed  at  times,  and 
the  doctor  said  it  was  nothing  but  his  liver ;  and  Carls 
bad  is  the  great  place  for  that,  you  know." 

"  Perhaps  I  can  get  papa  to  run  over  some  day,  if 
he  doesn't  like  Dresden.  It  isn't  very  far,  is  it  ? " 

They  referred  to  Mrs.  March's  Baedeker  together, 
and  found  that  it  was  five  hours. 

"  Yes,  that  is  what  I  thought,"  said  Miss  Triscoe, 
with  a  carelessness  which  convinced  Mrs.  March  she 
had  looked  up  the  fact  already. 

"  If  you  decide  to  come,  you  must  let  us  get  rooms 
for  you  at  our  hotel.  We're  going  to  Pupp's  ;  most 
of  the  English  and  Americans  go  to  the  hotels  on  the 
Hill,  but  Pupp's  is  in  the  thick  of  it  in  the  lower 
town  ;  and  it's  very  gay,  Mr.  Kenby  says ;  he's  been 
there  often.  Mr.  Burnamy  is  to  get  our  rooms." 

"  I  don't  suppose  I  can  get  papa  to  go,"  said  Miss 
Triscoe,  so  insincerely  that  Mrs.  March  was  sure  she 
had  talked  over  the  different  routes  to  Carlsbad  with 
Burnamy — probably  on  the  way  from  Cuxhaven.  She 
looked  up  from  digging  the  point  of  her  umbrella  in 


154  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

the  ground.  "  You  didn't  meet  him  here  this  morn- 
ing?" 

Mrs.  March  governed  herself  to  a  calm  which  she 
respected  in  asking,  "  Has  Mr.  Burnamy  been  here  ? " 

"  He  came  on  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Eltwin,  when  we 
did,  and  they  all  decided  to  stop  over  a  day.  They 
left  on  the  twelve-o'clock  train  to-day." 

Mrs.  March  perceived  that  the  girl  had  decided  not 
to  let  the  facts  betray  themselves  by  chance,  and  she 
treated  them  as  of  no  significance. 

"  No,  we  didn't  see  him,"  she  said,  carelessly. 

The  two  men  came  walking  slowly  towards  them, 
and  Miss  Triscoe  said,  "  We're  going  to  Dresden  this 
evening,  but  I  hope  we  shall  meet  somewhere,  Mrs. 
March." 

"  Oh,  people  never  lose  sight  of  each  other  in 
Europe  ;  they  can't ;  it's  so  little  !  " 

"  Agatha,"  said  the  girl's  father,  "  Mr.  March  tells 
me  that  the  museum  over  there  is  worth  seeing." 

"  Well,"  the  girl  assented,  and  she  took  a  winning 
leave  of  the  Marches,  and  moved  gracefully  away  with 
her  father. 

"  I  should  have  thought  it  was  Agnes,"  said  Mrs. 
March,  following  them  with  her  eyes  before  she  turned 
upon  her  husband.  "  Did  he  tell  you  Burnamy  had 
been  here  ?  Well,  he  has  !  He  has  just  gone  on  to 
Carlsbad.  He  made  those  poor  old  Eltwins  stop  over 
with  him,  so  he  could  be  with  her" 

"  Did  she  say  that  ?  " 

"  No,  but  of  course  he  did." 

"Then  it's  all  settled?" 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  155 

"  No,  it  isn't  settled.  It's  at  the  most  interesting 
point." 

"  Well,  don't  read  ahead.  You  always  want  to  look 
at  the  last  page." 

"  You  were  trying  to  look  at  the  last  page  your 
self,"  she  retorted,  and  she  would  have  liked  to  punish 
him  for  his  complex  dishonesty  toward  the  affair ;  but 
upon  the  whole  she  kept  her  temper  with  him,  and 
she  made  him  agree  that  Miss  Triscoe's  getting  her 
father  to  Carlsbad  was  only  a  question  of  time. 

They  parted  heart's-friends  with  their  ineffectual 
guide,  who  was  affectionately  grateful  for  the  few 
marks  they  gave  him,  at  the  hotel  door;  and  they 
were  in  just  the  mood  to  hear  men  singing  in  a  farther 
room  when  they  went  down  to  supper.  The  waiter, 
much  distracted  from  their  own  service  by  his  duties 
to  it,  told  them  it  was  the  breakfast  party  of  students 
which  they  had  heard  beginning  there  about  noon. 
The  revellers  had  now  been  some  six  hours  at  table, 
and  he  said  they  might  not  rise  before  midnight ;  they 
had  just  got  to  the  toasts,  which  were  apparently  set 
to  music. 

The  students  of  right  remained  a  vivid  color  in  the 
impression  of  the  university  town.  They  pervaded 
the  place,  and  decorated  it  with  their  fantastic  per 
sonal  taste  in  coats  and  trousers,  as  well  as  their  corps 
caps  of  green,  white,  red,  and  blue,  but  above  all  blue. 
They  were  not  easily  distinguishable  from  the  bicy 
clers  who  were  holding  one  of  the  dull  festivals  of 
their  kind  in  Leipsic  that  day,  and  perhaps  they  were 
sometimes  both  students  and  bicyclers.  As  bicyclers 


156  THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

they  kept  about  in  the  rain,  which  they  seemed  not  to 
mind ;  so  far  from  being  disheartened,  they  had  spirits 
enough  to  take  one  another  by  the  waist  at  times  and 
waltz  in  the  square  before  the  hotel.  At  one  moment 
of  the  holiday  some  chiefs  among  them  drove  away 
in  carriages;  at  supper  a  winner  of  prizes  sat  covered 
with  badges  and  medals ;  another  who  went  by  the 
hotel  streamed  with  ribbons ;  and  an  elderly  man  at 
his  side  was  bespattered  with  small  knots  and  ends  of 
them,  as  if  he  had  been  in  an  explosion  of  ribbons 
somewhere.  It  seemed  all  to  be  as  exciting  for  them, 
and  it  was  as  tedious  for  the  witnesses,  as  any  gala  of 
students  and  bicyclers  at  home. 

Mrs.  March  remained  with  an  unrequited  curiosity 
concerning  their  different  colors  and  different  caps, 
and  she  tried  to  make  her  husband  find  out  what  they 
severally  meant ;  he  pretended  a  superior  interest  in 
the  nature  of  a  people  who  had  such  a  passion  for 
uniforms  that  they  were  not  content  with  its  gratifica 
tion  in  their  immense  army,  but  indulged  it  in  every 
pleasure  and  employment  of  civil  life.  He  estimated, 
perhaps  not  very  accurately,  that  only  one  man  out  of 
ten  in  Germany  wore  citizens'  dress ;  and  of  all  func 
tionaries  he  found  that  the  dogs  of  the  women-and- 
dog  teams  alone  had  no  distinctive  dress ;  even  the 
women  had  their  peasant  costume. 

There  was  an  industrial  fair  open  at  Leipsic  which 
they  went  out  of  the  city  to  see  after  supper,  along 
with  a  throng  of  Leipsickers,  whom  an  hour's  interval 
of  fine  weather  tempted  forth  on  the  trolley  ;  and  with 
the  help  of  a  little  corporal,  who  took  a  fee  for  his 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  157 

service  with  the  eagerness  of  a  civilian,  they  got 
wheeled  chairs,  and  renewed  their  associations  with 
the  great  Chicago  Fair  in  seeing  the  exposition  from 
them.  This  was  not,  March  said,  quite  the  same  as 
being  drawn  by  a  woman-and-dog  team,  which  would 
have  been  the  right  means  of  doing  a  German  fair ; 
but  it  was  something  to  have  his  chair  pushed  by  a 
slender  young  girl,  whose  stalwart  brother  applied  his 
strength  to  the  chair  of  the  lighter  traveller ;  and  it 
was  fit  that  the  girl  should  reckon  the  common  hire, 
while  the  man  took  the  common  tip.  They  made 
haste  to  leave  the  useful  aspects  of  the  fair,  and  had 
themselves  trundled  away  to  the  Colonial  Exhibit, 
where  they  vaguely  expected  something  like  the  agree 
able  corruptions  of  the  Midway  Plaisance.  The  idea 
of  her  colonial  progress  with  which  Germany  is  trying 
to  affect  the  home-keeping  imagination  of  her  people 
was  illustrated  by  an  encampment  of  savages  from  her 
Central- African  possessions.  They  were  getting  their 
supper  at  the  moment  the  Marches  saw  them,  and 
were  crouching,  half  naked,  around  the  fires  under  the 
kettles,  and  shivering  from  the  cold,  but  they  were 
not  very  characteristic  of  the  imperial  expansion,  un 
less  perhaps  when  an  old  man  in  a  red  blanket  sud 
denly  sprang  up  with  a  knife  in  his  hand  and  began 
to  chase  a  boy  round  the  camp.  The  boy  was  lighter- 
footed,  and  easily  outran  the  sage,  who  tripped  at 
times  on  his  blanket.  None  of  the  other  Central- 
Africans  seemed  to  care  for  the  race,  and  without 
waiting  for  the  event,  the  American  spectators  ordered 
themselves  trundled  away  to  another  idle  feature  of 


158  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

the  fair,  where  they  hoped  to  amuse  themselves  with 
the  image  of  Old  Leipsic. 

This  was  so  faithfully  studied  from  the  past  in  its 
narrow  streets  and  Gothic  houses  that  it  was  almost 
as  picturesque  as  the  present  epoch  in  the  old  streets 
of  Hamburg.  A  drama  had  just  begun  to  be  repre 
sented  on  a  platform  of  the  public  square  in  front  of 
a  fourteenth-century  beer-house,  with  people  talking 
from  the  windows  round,  and  revellers  in  the  costume 
of  the  period  drinking  beer  and  eating  sausages  at 
tables  in  the  open  air.  Their  eating  and  drinking 
were  genuine,  and  in  the  midst  of  it  a  real  rain  began 
to  pour  down  upon  them,  without  affecting  them  any 
more  than  if  they  had  been  Germans  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  But  it  drove  the  Americans  to  a  shelter 
from  which  they  could  not  see  the  play,  and  when  it 
held  up,  they  made  their  way  back  to  their  hotel. 

Their  car  was  full  of  returning  pleasurers,  some  of 
whom  were  happy  beyond  the  sober  wont  of  the  fath 
erland.  The  conductor  took  a  special  interest  in  his 
tipsy  passengers,  trying  to  keep  them  in  order,  and 
genially  entreating  them  to  be  quiet  when  they  were 
too  obstreperous.  From  time  to  time  he  got  some  of 
them  off,  and  then,  when  he  remounted  the  car,  he 
appealed  to  the  remaining  passengers  for  their  sym 
pathy  with  an  innocent  smile,  which  the  Americans, 
still  strange  to  the  unjoyous  physiognomy  of  the  Ger 
man  Empire,  failed  to  value  at  its  rare  worth. 

Before  he  slept  that  night  March  tried  to  assemble 
from  the  experiences  and  impressions  of  the  day  some 
facts  which  he  would  not  be  ashamed  of  as  a  serious 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  159 

observer  of  life  in  Leipsic,  and  he  remembered  that 
their  guide  had  said  house-rent  was  very  low.  He 
generalized  from  the  guide's  content  with  his  fee  that 
the  Germans  were  not  very  rapacious ;  and  he  became 
quite  irrelevantly  aware  that  in  Germany  no  man's 
clothes  fitted  him,  or  seemed  expected  to  fit  him  ;  that 
the  women  dressed  somewhat  better,  and  were  rather 
pretty  sometimes,  and  that  they  had  feet  as  large  as 
the  kind  hearts  of  the  Germans  of  every  age  and  sex. 
He  was  able  to  note,  rather  more  freshly,  that  with 
all  their  kindness  the  Germans  were  a  very  nervous 
people,  if  not  irritable,  and  at  the  least  cause  gave 
way  to  an  agitation,  which  indeed  quickly  passed,  but 
was  violent  while  it  lasted.  Several  times  that  day  he 
had  seen  encounters  between  the  portier  and  guests  at 
the  hotel  which  promised  violence,  but  which  ended 
peacefully  as  soon  as  some  simple  question  of  train- 
time  was  solved.  The  encounters  always  left  the 
portier  purple  and  perspiring,  as  any  agitation  must 
with  a  man  so  tight  in  his  livery.  He  bemoaned 
himself  after  one  of  them  as  the  victim  of  an  unhappy 
calling,  in  which  he  could  take  no  exercise.  "  It  is  a 
life  of  excitements,  but  not  of  movements,"  he  ex 
plained  to  March  ;  and  when  he  learned  where  he  was 
going,  he  regretted  that  he  could  not  go  to  Carlsbad 
too.  "  For  sugar  ? "  he  asked,  as  if  there  were  over 
much  of  it  in  his  own  make. 

March  felt  the  tribute,  but  he  had  to  say,  "  No ; 
liver." 

"  Ah ! "  said  the  portier,  with  the  air  of  failing  to 
get  on  common  ground  with  him. 


XXV. 

THE  next  morning  was  so  fine  that  it  would  have 
been  a  fine  morning  in  America.  Its  beauty  was 
scarcely  sullied,  even  subjectively,  by  the  telegram 
which  the  portier  sent  after  the  Marches  from  the 
hotel,  saying  that  their  missing  trunk  had  not  yet  been 
found,  and  their  spirits  were  as  light  as  the  gay  little 
clouds  which  blew  about  in  the  sky,  when  their  train 
drew  out  in  the  sunshine,  brilliant  on  the  charming 
landscape  all  the  way  to  Carlsbad.  A  fatherly  traeger 
had  done  his  best  to  get  them  the  worst  places  in  a 
non-smoking  compartment,  but  had  succeeded  so 
poorly  that  they  were  very  comfortable,  with  no  com 
panions  but  a  mother  and  daughter,  who  spoke  Ger 
man  in  soft  low  tones  together.  Their  compartment 
was  pervaded  by  tobacco  fumes  from  the  smokers, 
but  as  these  were  twice  as  many  as  the  non-smokers, 
it  was  only  fair,  and  after  March  had  got  a  window 
open  it  did  not  matter,  really. 

He  asked  leave  of  the  strangers  in  his  German,  and 
they  consented  in  theirs ;  but  he  could  not  master  the 
secret  of  the  window-catch,  and  the  elder  lady  said  in 
English,  "  Let  me  show  you,"  and  came  to  his  help. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  161 

The  occasion  for  explaining  that  they  were  Americans 
and  accustomed  to  different  car  windows  was  so  tempt 
ing  that  Mrs.  March  could  not  forbear,  and  the  other 
ladies  were  affected  as  deeply  as  she  could  wish. 
Perhaps  they  were  the  more  affected  because  it  pres 
ently  appeared  that  they  had  cousins  in  New  York 
whom  she  knew  of,  and  that  they  were  acquainted 
with  an  American  family  that  had  passed  the  winter 
in  Berlin.  Life  likes  to  do  these  things  handsomely, 
and  it  easily  turned  out  that  this  was  a  family 
of  intimate  friendship  with  the  Marches ;  the  names, 
familiarly  spoken,  abolished  all  strangeness  between 
the  travellers ;  and  they  entered  into  a  comparison  of 
tastes,  opinions,  and  experiences,  from  which  it  seemed 
that  the  objects  and  interests  of  cultivated  people  in 
Berlin  were  quite  the  same  as  those  of  cultivated  peo 
ple  in  New  York.  Each  of  the  parties  to  the  discov 
ery  disclaimed  any  superiority  for  their  respective 
civilizations ;  they  wished  rather  to  ascribe  a  greater 
charm  and  virtue  to  the  alien  conditions;  and  they 
acquired  such  merit  with  one  another  that  when  the 
German  ladies  got  out  of  the  train  at  Franzensbad,  the 
mother  offered  Mrs.  March  an  ingenious  folding  foot 
stool  which  she  had  admired.  In  fact,  she  left  her  with 
it  clasped  to  her  breast,  and  bowing  speechless  tow 
ard  the  giver  in  a  vain  wish  to  express  her  gratitude. 

"  That  was  very    pretty   of   her,   my    dear,"    said 
March.     "  You  couldn't  have  done  that." 

"  No,"  she  confessed ;  "  I  shouldn't  have  had  the 
courage.     The  courage  of  my  emotions,"  she  added, 
thoughtfully. 
K 


162  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  Ah,  that's  the  difference  !  A  Berliner  could  do  it, 
and  a  Bostonian  couldn't.  Do  you  think  it  so  much 
better  to  have  the  courage  of  your  convictions?" 

u  I  don't  know.  It  seems  to  me  that  I'm  less  and 
less  certain  of  everything  that  I  used  to  be  sure  of." 

He  laughed,  and  then  he  said,  "  I  was  thinking 
how,  on  our  wedding  journey,  long  ago,  that  Gray  Sis 
ter  at  the  Hotel  Dieu  in  Quebec  offered  you  a  rose." 

"  Well  ? " 

"  That  was  to  your  pretty  youth.  Now  the  gracious 
stranger  gives  you  a  folding  stool." 

"  To  rest  my  poor  old  feet.  Well,  I  would  rather 
have  it  than  a  rose,  now." 

"  You  bent  toward  her  at  just  the  slant  you  had 
when  you  took  the  flower  that  time ;  I  noticed  it.  I 
didn't  see  that  you  looked  so  very  different.  To  be 
sure  the  roses  in  your  cheeks  have  turned  into  ro 
settes  ;  but  rosettes  are  very  nice,  and  they're  much 
more  permanent ;  I  prefer  them ;  they  will  keep  in 
any  climate." 

She  suffered  his  mockery  with  an  appreciative  sigh. 
"  Yes,  our  age  caricatures  our  youth,  doesn't  it  ? " 

"  I  don't  think  it  gets  much  fun  out  of  it,"  he  as 
sented. 

"  No  ;  but  it  can't  help  it.  I  used  to  rebel  against 
it  when  it  first  began.  I  did  enjoy  being  young." 

"  You  did,  my  dear,"  he  said,  taking  her  hand  ten 
derly  ;  she  withdrew  it,  because  though  she  could  bear 
his  sympathy,  her  New  England  nature  could  not  bear 
its  expression.  "  And  so  did  I ;  and  we  were  both 
young  a  long  time.  Travelling  brings  the  past  back, 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  163 

don't  you  think  ?  There  at  that  restaurant,  where  we 
stopped  for  dinner — " 

"  Yes,  it  was  charming !  Just  as  it  used  to  be  ! 
With  that  white  cloth,  and  those  tall  shining  bottles 
of  wine,  and  the  fruit  in  the  centre,  and  the  dinner  in 
courses,  and  that  young  waiter  who  spoke  English, 
and  was  so  nice  !  I'm  never  going  home;  you  may, 
if  you  like." 

"You  bragged  to  those  ladies  about  our  dining- 
cars  ;  and  you  said  that  our  railroad  restaurants  were 
quite  as  good  as  the  European." 

"  I  had  to  do  that.  But  I  knew  better;  they  don't 
begin  to  be." 

"  Perhaps  not ;  but  I've  been  thinking  that  travel 
is  a  good  deal  alike  everywhere.  It's  the  expression 
of  the  common  civilization  of  the  world.  When  I 
came  out  of  that  restaurant  and  ran  the  train  down, 
and  then  found  that  it  didn't  start  for  fifteen  minutes, 
I  wasn't  sure  whether  I  was  at  home  or  abroad.  And 
when  we  changed  cars  at  Eger,  and  got  into  this  train 
which  had  been  baking  in  the  sun  for  us  outside  the 
station,  I  didn't  know  but  I  was  back  in  the  good  old 
Fitchburg  depot.  To  be  sure,  Wallenstein  wasn't 
assassinated  at  Boston,  but  I  forgot  his  murder  at 
Eger,  and  so  that  came  to  the  same  thing.  It's  these 
confounded  fifty-odd  years.  I  used  to  recollect  every 
thing." 

He  had  got  up  and  was  looking  out  of  the  window 
at  the  landscape,  which  had  not  grown  less  amiable  in 
growing  rather  more  slovenly  since  they  had  crossed 
the  Saxon  border  into  Bohemia.  All  the  morning  and 


164  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

early  afternoon  they  had  run  through  lovely  levels  of 
.harvest,  where  men  were  cradling  the  wheat  and 
women  were  binding  it  into  sheaves  in  the  narrow 
fields  between  black  spaces  of  forest.  After  they  left 
Eger,  there  was  something  more  picturesque  and  less 
thrifty  in  the  farming  among  the  low  hills  which  they 
gradually  mounted  to  uplands,  where  they  tasted  a 
mountain  quality  in  the  thin  pure  air.  The  railroad 
stations  were  shabbier  ;  there  was  an  indefinable  touch 
of  something  Southern  in  the  scenery  and  the  people. 
Lilies  were  rocking  on  the  sluggish  reaches  of  the 
streams,  and  where  the  current  quickened,  tall  wheels 
were  lifting  water  for  the  fields  in  circles  of  brimming 
and  spilling  pockets.  Along  the  embankments,  where 
a  new  track  was  being  laid,  barefooted  women  were 
at  work  with  pick  and  spade  and  barrow,  and  little 
yellow-haired  girls  were  lugging  large  white-headed 
babies,  and  watching  the  train  go  by.  At  an  up  grade 
where  it  slowed  in  the  ascent  he  began  to  throw  out 
to  the  children  the  pfennigs  which  had  been  left  over 
from  the  passage  in  Germany,  and  he  pleased  himself 
with  his  bounty,  till  the  question  whether  the  children 
could  spend  the  money  forced  itself  upon  him.  He 
sat  down  feeling  less  like  a  good  genius  than  a  cruel 
magician  who  had  tricked  them  with  false  wealth  ;  but 
he  kept  his  remorse  to  himself,  and  tried  to  interest 
his  wife  in  the  difference  of  social  and  civic  ideal  ex 
pressed  in  the  change  of  the  inhibitory  notices  at 
the  car  windows,  which  in  Germany  had  strongliest 
forbidden  him  to  outlean  himself,  and  now  in  Austria 
entreated  him  not  to  outbow  himself.  She  refused  to 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  165 

share  in  the  speculation,  or  to  debate  the  yet  nicer 
problem  involved  by  the  placarded  prayer  in  the  wash 
room  to  the  Messrs.  Travellers  not  to  take  away  the 
soap ;  and  suddenly  he  felt  himself  as  tired  as  she 
looked,  with  that  sense  of  the  futility  of  travel  which 
lies  in  wait  for  every  one  who  profits  by  travel. 


XXVI. 

THEY  found  Burnamy  expecting  them  at  the  station 
in  Carlsbad,  and  she  scolded  him  like  a  mother  for 
taking  the  trouble  to  meet  them,  while  she  kept  back 
for  the  present  any  sign  of  knowing  that  he  had  staid 
over  a  day  with  the  Triscoes  in  Leipsic.  He  was  as 
affectionately  glad  to  see  her  and  her  husband  as  she 
could  have  wished,  but  she  would  have  liked  it  better 
if  he  had  owned  up  at  once  about  Leipsic.  He  did 
not,  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  he  was  holding  her  at 
arm's-length  in  his  answers  about  his  employer.  He 
would  not  say  how  he  liked  his  work,  or  how  he  liked 
Mr.  Stoller;  he  merely  said  that  they  were  at  Pupp's 
together,  and  that  he  had  got  in  a  good  day's  work 
already;  and  since  he  would  say  no  more,  she  con 
tented  herself  with  that. 

The  long  drive  from  the  station  to  the  hotel  was  by 
streets  that  wound  down  the  hill-side  like  those  of  an 
Italian  mountain  town,  between  gay  stuccoed  houses, 
of  Southern  rather  than  of  Northern  architecture ;  and 
the  impression  of  a  Latin  country  was  heightened  at 
a  turn  of  the  road  which  brought  into  view  a  colossal 
crucifix  planted  against  a  curtain  of  dark  green  foliage 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  167 

on  the  brow  of  one  of  the  wooded  heights  that  sur 
rounded  Carlsbad.  When  they  reached  the  level  of 
the  Tepl,  the  hill-fed  torrent  that  brawls  through  the 
little  city  under  pretty  bridges  within  walls  of  solid 
masonry,  they  found  themselves  in  almost  the  only 
vehicle  on  a  brilliant  promenade  thronged  with  a  cos 
mopolitan  world.  Germans  in  every  manner  of  misfit; 
Polish  Jews  in  long  black  gabardines,  with  tight  cork 
screw  curls  on  their  temples  under  their  black  velvet 
derbys;  Austrian  officers  in  tight  corsets;  Greek 
priests  in  flowing  robes  and  brimless  high  hats ;  Rus 
sians  in  caftans  and  Cossacks  in  Astrakhan  caps, 
accented  the  more  homogeneous  masses  of  western 
Europeans,  in  which  it  would  have  been  hard  to  say 
which  were  English,  French  or  Italians.  Among  the 
vividly  dressed  ladies,  some  were  imaginably  Parisian 
from  their  chic  costumes,  but  they  might  easily  have 
been  Hungarians  or  Levantines  of  taste ;  some  Amer 
icans,  who  might  have  passed  unknown  in  the  perfec 
tion  of  their  dress,  gave  their  nationality  away  in  the 
flat  wooden  tones  of  their  voices,  which  made  them 
selves  heard  above  the  low  hum  of  talk  and  the  whis 
per  of  the  innumerable  feet. 

The  omnibus  worked  its  way  at  a  slow  walk  among 
the  promenaders  going  and  coming  between  the  rows 
of  pollard  locusts  on  one  side  and  the  bright  walls  of 
the  houses  on  the  other.  Under  the  trees  were  tables, 
served  by  pretty  bareheaded  girls  who  ran  to  and  from 
the  restaurants  across  the  way.  On  both  sides  flashed 
and  glittered  the  little  shops  full  of  silver,  glass,  jew 
elry,  terra-cotta  figurines,  wood-carvings,  and  all  the 


168  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

idle  frippery  of  watering-place  traffic.  They  suggest 
ed  Paris,  and  they  suggested  Saratoga,  and  then  they 
were  of  Carlsbad  and  of  no  place  else  in  the*  world,  as 
the  crowd  which  might  have  been  that  of  other  cities 
at  certain  moments  could  only  have  been  of  Carlsbad 
in  its  habitual  effect. 

"  Do  you  like  it  ? "  asked  Burnamy,  as  if  he  owned 
the  place,  and  Mrs.  March  saw  how  simple-hearted  he 
was  in  his  reticence,  after  all.  She  was  ready  to  bless 
him  when  they  reached  the  hotel  and  found  that  his 
interest  had  got  them  the  only  rooms  left  in  the 
house.  This  satisfied  in  her  the  passion  for  size  which 
is  at  the  bottom  of  every  American  heart,  and  which 
perhaps  above  all  else  marks  us  the  youngest  of  the 
peoples.  We  pride  ourselves  on  the  bigness  of  our 
own  things,  but  we  are  not  unge:  crous,  and  when  we 
go  to  Europe  and  find  things  bigger  than  ours,  we  are 
magnanimously  happy  in  them.  Pupp's,  in  its  alto 
gether  different  way,  was  larger  than  any  hotel  at  Sar 
atoga  or  at  Niagara ;  and  when  Burnamy  told  her  that 
it  sometimes  fed  fifteen  thousand  people  a  day  in  the 
height  of  the  season,  she  was  personally  proud  of  it. 

She  waited  with  him  in  the  rotunda  of  the  hotel, 
while  the  secretary  led  March  off  to  look  at  the  rooms 
reserved  for  them,  and  Burnamy  hospitably  turned  the 
revolving  octagonal  case  in  the  centre  of  the  rotunda 
where  the  names  of  the  guests  were  put  up.  They 
were  of  all  nations,  but  there  were  so  many  New- 
Yorkers  whose  names  ended  in  berg,  and  thai,  and 
stern,  and  baum  that  she  seemed  to  be  gazing  upon  a 
cyclorama  of  the  signs  on  Broadway.  A  large  man  of 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  169 

unmistakable  American  make,  but  with  so  little  that 
was  of  New  England  or  New  York  in  his  presence 
that  she  might  not  at  once  have  thought  him  Ameri 
can,  lounged  toward  them  with  a  quill  toothpick  in 
the  corner  of  his  mouth.  He  had  a  jealous  blue  eye, 
into  which  he  seemed  trying  to  put  a  friendly  light ; 
his  straight  mouth  stretched  into  an  involuntary  smile 
above  his  tawny  chin-beard,  and  he  wore  his  soft  hat 
so  far  back  from  his  high  forehead  (it  showed  to  the 
crown  when  he  took  his  hat  off)  that  he  had  the  effect 
of  being  uncovered. 

At  his  approach  Burnamy  turned,  and  with  a  flush 
said :  "  Oh !  Let  me  introduce  Mr.  Stoller,  Mrs. 
March." 

Stoller  took  his  toothpick  out  of  his  mouth  and 
bowed ;  then  he  seemed  to  remember,  and  took  off  his 
hat.  "  You  see  Jews  enough  here  to  make  you  feel 
at  home  ? "  he  asked ;  and  he  added :  "  Well,  we  got 
some  of  'em  in  Chicago,  too,  I  guess.  This  young 
man"  —  he  twisted  his  head  toward  Burnamy  — 
"  found  you  easy  enough  ?  " 

"  It  was  very  good  of  him  to  meet  us,"  Mrs.  March 
began.  "  We  didn't  expect — " 

"Oh,  that's  all  right,"  said  Stoller,  putting  his 
toothpick  back,  and  his  hat  on.  "  We'd  got  through 
for  the  day ;  my  doctor  won't  let  me  work  all  I  want 
to,  here.  Your  husband's  going  to  take  the  cure, 
they  tell  me.  Well,  he  wants  to  go  to  a  good  doctor, 
first.  You  can't  go  and  drink  these  waters  hit  or 
miss.  I  found  that  out  before  I  came." 

"  Oh,  no ! "  said  Mrs.  March,  and  she  wished  to 


170  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

explain  how  they  had  been  advised ;  but  he  said  to 
Burnamy : 

"  I  sha'n't  want  you  again  till  ten  to-morrow  morn 
ing.  Don't  let  me  interrupt  you,"  he  added  patron 
izingly  to  Mrs.  March.  He  put  his  hand  up  toward 
his  hat,  and  sauntered  away  out  of  the  door. 

Burnamy  did  not  speak ;  and  she  only  asked  at  last, 
to  relieve  the  silence,  "  Is  Mr.  Stoller  an  American  ? " 

"  Why,  I  suppose  so,"  he  answered,  with  an  uneasy 
laugh.  "  His  people  were  German  emigrants  who  set 
tled  in  Southern  Indiana.  That  makes  him  as  much 
American  as  any  of  us,  doesn't  it  ? " 

Burnamy  spoke  with  his  mind  on  his  French-Cana 
dian  grandfather,  who  had  come  down  through  De 
troit,  when  their  name  was  Bonami ;  but  Mrs.  March 
answered  from  her  eight  generations  of  New  England 
ancestry.  "  Oh,  for  the  West,  yes,  perhaps,"  and 
they  neither  of  them  said  anything  more  about  Stoller. 

In  their  room,  where  she  found  March  waiting  for 
her  amidst  their  arriving  baggage,  she  was  so  full  of 
her  pent-up  opinions  of  Burnamy's  patron  that  she 
would  scarcely  speak  of  the  view  from  their  windows 
of  the  wooded  hills  up  and  down  the  Tepl.  "Yes, 
yes;  very  nice,  and  I  know  I  shall  enjoy  it  ever  so 
much.  But  I  don't  know  what  you  will  think  of  that 
poor  young  Burnamy  !  " 

"  Why,  what's  happened  to  him  ? " 

"  Happened  ?     Stoller' s  happened." 

"  Oh,  have  you  seen  him,  already  ?     Well  ? " 

"  Well,  if  you  had  been  going  to  pick  out  that  type 
of  man,  you'd  have  rejected  him,  because  you'd  have 


THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  171 

said  he  was  too  pat.  He's  like  an  actor  made  up  for 
a  Western  millionaire.  Do  you  remember  that  Amer 
ican  in  IS  fitrangere  which  Bernhardt  did  in  Boston 
when  she  first  came  ?  He  looks  exactly  like  that,  and 
he  has  the  worst  manners.  He  stood  talking  to  me 
with  his  hat  on,  and  a  toothpick  in  his  mouth ;  and 
he  made  me  feel  as  if  he  had  bought  me,  along  with 
Burnamy,  and  had  paid  too  much.  If  you  don't  give 
him  a  setting  down,  Basil,  I  shall  never  speak  to  you ; 
that's  all.  I'm  sure  Burnamy  is  in  some  trouble  with 
him ;  he's  got  some  sort  of  hold  upon  him ;  what  it 
could  be  in  such  a  short  time,  /  can't  imagine ;  but  if 
ever  a  man  seemed  to  be  in  a  man's  power,  he  does, 
in  his  !  " 

"  Now,"  said  March,  "  your  pronouns  have  got  so 
far  beyond  me  that  I  think  we'd  better  let  it  all  go  till 
after  supper;  perhaps  I  shall  see  Stoller  myself  by 
that  time." 

She  had  been  deeply  stirred  by  her  encounter  with 
Stoller,  but  she  entered  with  impartial  intensity  into 
the  fact  that  the  elevator  at  Pupp's  had  the  character 
istic  of  always  coming  up  and  never  going  down  with 
passengers.  It  was  locked  into  its  closet  with  a  solid 
door,  and  there  was  no  bell  to  summon  it,  or  any 
place  to  take  it  except  on  the  ground-floor ;  but  the 
stairs  by  which  she  could  descend  were  abundant  and 
stately ;  and  on  one  landing  there  was  the  lithograph 
of  one  of  the  largest  and  ugliest  hotels  in  New  York ; 
how  ugly  it  was,  she  said  she  should  never  have 
known  if  she  had  not  seen  it  there. 

The  dining-room  was  divided  into  the  grand  saloon, 


172  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

where  they  supped  amid  rococo  sculptures  and  fres 
coes,  and  the  glazed  veranda  opening  by  vast  windows 
on  a  spread  of  tables  without,  which  were  already  fill 
ing  up  for  the  evening  concert.  Around  them  at  the 
different  tables  there  were  groups  of  faces  and  figures 
fascinating  in  their  strangeness,  with  that  distinction 
which  abashes  our  American  level  in  the  presence  of 
European  inequality. 

"  How  simple  and  unimpressive  we  are,  Basil,"  she 
said,  "  beside  all  these  people  !  I  used  to  feel  it  in 
Europe  when  I  was  young,  and  now  I'm  certain  that 
we  must  seem  like  two  faded-in  old  village  photo 
graphs.  We  don't  even  look  intellectual !  I  hope  we 
look  goody 

"  I  know  /  do,"  said  March.  The  waiter  went  for 
their  supper,  and  they  joined  in  guessing  the  different 
nationalities  in  the  room.  A  French  party  was  easy 
enough ;  a  Spanish  mother  and  daughter  were  not 
difficult,  though  whether  they  were  not  South-Ameri 
can  remained  uncertain;  two  elderly  maiden  ladies 
were  unmistakably  of  central  Massachusetts,  and  were 
obviously  of  a  book-club  culture  that  had  left  no  leaf 
unturned ;  some  Triestines  gave  themselves  away  by 
their  Venetian  accent ;  but  a  large  group  at  a  farther 
table  were  unassignable  in  the  strange  language  which 
they  clattered  loudly  together,  with  bursts  of  laughter. 
They  were  a  family  party  of  old  and  young,  they  were 
having  a  good  time,  with  a  freedom  which  she  called 
baronial ;  the  ladies  wore  white  satin,  or  black  lace, 
but  the  men  were  in  sack-coats ;  she  chose  to  attribute 
them,  for  no  reason  but  their  outlandishness,  to  Tran- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  173 

sylvania.  March  pretended  to  prefer  a  table  full  of 
Germans,  who  were  unmistakably  bourgeois,  and  yet 
of  intellectual  effect.  He  chose  as  his  favorite  a  mid 
dle-aged  man  of  learned  aspect,  and  they  both  decided 
to  think  of  him  as  the  Herr  Professor,  but  they  did 
not  imagine  how  perfectly  the  title  fitted  him  till  he 
drew  a  long  comb  from  his  waistcoat  pocket  and 
combed  his  hair  and  beard  with  it  above  the  table. 

The  wine  wrought  with  the  Transylvanians,  and 
they  all  jargoned  together  at  once,  and  laughed  at  the 
jokes  passing  among  them.  One  old  gentleman  had 
a  peculiar  fascination  from  the  infantile  innocence  of 
his  gums  when  he  threw  his  head  back  to  laugh,  and 
showed  an  upper  jaw  toothless  except  for  two  incisors, 
standing  guard  over  the  chasm  between.  Suddenly 
he  choked,  coughed  to  relieve  himself,  hawked,  held 
his  napkin  up  before  him,  and — 

"  Noblesse  oblige"  said  March,  with  the  tone  of 
irony  which  he  reserved  for  his  wife's  preoccupations 
with  aristocracies  of  all  sorts.  "  I  think  I  prefer  my 
Hair  Professor,  bourgeois  as  he  is." 

The  ladies  attributively  of  central  Massachusetts 
had  risen  from  their  table,  and  were  making  for  the 
door  without  having  paid  for  their  supper.  The  head 
waiter  ran  after  them  ;  with  a  real  delicacy  for  their 
mistake  he  explained  that  though  in  most  places  the 
meals  were  charged  in  the  bill,  it  was  the  custom  in 
Carlsbad  to  pay  for  them  at  the  table ;  one  could  see 
that  he  was  making  their  error  a  pleasant  adventure 
to  them  which  they  could  laugh  over  together,  and 
write  home  about  without  a  pang. 


174  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  And  I,"  said  Mrs.  March,  shamelessly  abandoning 
the  party  of  the  aristocracy,  "  prefer  the  manners  of 
the  lower  classes." 

"  Oh,  yes,"  he  admitted.  "  The  only  manners  we 
have  at  home  are  black  ones.  But  you  mustn't  lose 
courage.  Perhaps  the  nobility  are  not  always  so  bar 
onial." 

u  I  don't  know  whether  we  have  manners  at  home," 
she  said,  "  and  I  don't  believe  I  care.  At  least  we 
have  decencies." 

"  Don't  be  a  jingo,"  said  her  husband. 


XXVII. 

THOUGH  Stoller  had  formally  discharged  Burnamy 
from  duty  for  the  day,  he  was  not  so  full  of  resources 
in  himself,  and  he  had  not  so  general  an  acquaintance 
in  the  hotel  but  he  was  glad  to  have  the  young  fellow 
make  up  to  him  in  the  reading-room,  that  night.  He 
laid  down  a  New  York  paper  ten  days  old  in  despair 
of  having  left  any  American  news  in  it,  and  pushed 
several  continental  Anglo-American  papers  aside  with 
his  elbow,  as  he  gave  a  contemptuous  glance  at  the 
foreign  journals,  in  Bohemian,  Hungarian,  German, 
French,  and  Italian,  which  littered  the  large  table. 

"  I  wonder,"  he  said,  "  how  long  it'll  take  'em,  over 
here,  to  catch  on  to  our  way  of  having  pictures  ? " 

Burnamy  had  come  to  his  newspaper  work  since 
illustrated  journalism  was  established,  and  he  had 
never  had  any  shock  from  it  at  home,  but  so  sensitive 
is  youth  to  environment  that,  after  four  days  in 
Europe,  the  New  York  paper  Stoller  had  laid  down 
was  already  hideous  to  him.  From  the  politic  side  of 
his  nature,  however,  he  temporized  with  Stoller's 
preference.  "  I  suppose  it  will  be  some  time  yet." 

"  I  wish,"  said  Stoller,  with  a  savage  disregard  of 


176  THEIR    SILVEI?  WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

expressed  sequences  and  relevancies,  "  I  could  ha'  got 
some  pictures  to  send  home  with  that  letter  this  after 
noon:  something  to  show  how  they  do  things  here, 
and  be  a  kind  of  object-lesson."  This  term  had  come 
up  in  a  recent  campaign  when  some  employers,  by 
shutting  down  their  works,  were  showing  their  em 
ployees  what  would  happen  if  the  employees  voted 
their  political  opinions  into  effect,  and  Stoller  had 
then  mastered  its  meaning  and  was  fond  of  using  it. 
"  I'd  like  'em  to  see  the  woods  around  here,  that  the 
city  owns,  and  the  springs,  and  the  donkey-carts,  and 
the  theatre,  and  everything,  and  give  'em  some  prac 
tical  ideas." 

Burnamy  made  an  uneasy  movement. 
"  I'd  'a'  liked  to  put  'em  alongside  of  some  of  our 
improvements,  and  show  how  a  town  can  be  carried 
on  when  it's  managed  on  business  principles.      Why 
didn't  you  think  of  it  ?  " 

"Really,  I  don't  know,"  said  Burnamy,  with  a 
touch  of  impatience. 

They  had  not  met  the  evening  before  on  the  best 
of  terms.  Stoller  had  expected  Burnamy  twenty-four 
hours  earlier,  and  had  shown  his  displeasure  with  him 
for  loitering  a  day  at  Leipsic  which  he  might  have 
spent  at  Carlsbad ;  and  Burnamy  had  been  unsatisfac 
tory  in  accounting  for  the  delay.  But  he  had  taken 
hold  so  promptly  and  so  intelligently  that  by  working 
far  into  the  night,  and  through  the  whole  forenoon,  he 
had  got  Stollcr's  crude  mass  of  notes  into  shape,  and 
had  sent  off  in  time  for  the  first  steamer  the  letter 
which  was  to  appear  over  the  proprietor's  name  in  his 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  177 

paper.  It  was  a  sort  of  rough  but  very  full  study  of 
the  Carlsbad  city  government,  the  methods  of  taxation, 
the  municipal  ownership  of  the  springs  and  the  lands, 
and  the  public  control  in  everything.  It  condemned 
the  aristocratic  constitution  of  the  municipality,  but 
it  charged  heavily  in  favor  of  the  purity,  beneficence, 
and  wisdom  of  the  administration,  under  which  there 
was  no  poverty  and  no  idleness,  and  which  was  man 
aged  like  any  large  business. 

Stoller  had  sulkily  recurred  to  his  displeasure,  once 
or  twice,  and  Burnamy  suffered  it  submissively  until 
now.  But  now,  at  the  change  in  Burnamy's  tone,  he 
changed  his  manner  a  little. 

"Seen  your  friends  since  supper?"  he  asked. 

"  Only  a  moment.  They  are  rather  tired,  and 
they've  gone  to  bed." 

"  That  the  fellow  that  edits  that  book  you  write 
for?" 

"Yes;  he  owns  it,  too." 

The  notion  of  any  sort  of  ownership  moved  Stoller's 
respect,  and  he  asked  more  deferentially,  "  Makin'  a 
good  thing  out  of  it  ? " 

"A  living,  I  suppose.  Some  of  the  high-class 
weeklies  feel  the  competition  of  the  ten-cent  month 
lies.  But  Every  Other  Week  is  about  the  best  thing 
we've  got  in  the  literary  way,  and  I  guess  it's  holding 
its  own." 

"  Have  to,  to  let  the  editor  come  to  Carlsbad," 
Stoller  said,  with  a  return  to  the  sourness  of  his  earlier 
mood.  "  I  don't  know  as  I  care  much  for  his  looks ; 
I  seen  him  when  he  came  in  with  you.  No  snap  to 


178  THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

him."*  He  clicked  shut  the  penknife  he  had  been 
paring  his  nails  with,  and  started  up  with  the  abrupt 
ness  which  marked  all  his  motions,  mental  and  physi 
cal  ;  as  he  walked  heavily  out  of  the  room  he  said, 
without  looking  at  Burnamy,  "  You  want  to  be  ready 
by  half  past  ten  at  the  latest." 

Stoller's  father  and  mother  were  poor  emigrants 
who  made  their  way  to  the  West  with  the  instinct 
for  a  sordid  prosperity  native  to  their  race  and  class ; 
and  they  set  up  a  small  butcher  shop  in  the  little  In 
diana  town  where  their  son  was  born,  and  throve  in  it 
from  the  start.  He  could  remember  his  mother  help 
ing  his  father  make  the  sausage  and  head-cheese  and 
pickle  the  pigs'  feet,  which  they  took  turns  in  selling 
at  as  great  a  price  as  they  could  extort  from  the 
townspeople.  She  was  a  good  and  tender  mother, 
and  when  her  little  Yawcup,  as  the  boys  called  Jacob 
in  mimicry  after  her,  had  grown  to  the  school-going 
age,  she  taught  him  to  fight  the  Americans,  who 
stoned  him  when  he  came  out  of  his  gate,  and  mob 
bed  his  home-coming;  and  mocked  and  tormented 
him  at  play-time  till  they  wore  themselves  into  a 
kindlier  mind  toward  him  through  the  exhaustion  of 
their  invention.  No  one,  so  far  as  the  gloomy,  stocky, 
rather  dense  little  boy  could  make  out,  ever  interfered 
in  his  behalf ;  and  he  grew  up  in  bitter  shame  for  his 
German  origin,  which  entailed  upon  him  the  hard  fate 
of  being  Dutch  among  the  Americans.  He  hated  his 
native  speech  so  much  that  he  cried  when  he  was 
forced  to  use  it  with  his  father  and  mother  at  home ; 
he  furiously  denied  it  with  the  boys  who  proposed  to 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  179 

parley  with  him  in  it  on  such  terms  as  "  Nix  come 
arouce  in  de  Dytchman's  house."  He  disused  it  so 
thoroughly  that  after  his  father  took  him  out  of 
school,  when  he  was  old  enough  to  help  in  the  shop, 
he  could  not  get  back  to  it.  He  regarded  his  father's 
business  as  part  of  his  national  disgrace,  and  at  the 
cost  of  leaving  his  home  he  broke  away  from  it,  and 
informally  apprenticed  himself  to  the  village  black 
smith  and  wagon-maker.  When  it  came  to  his  setting 
up  for  himself  in  the  business  he  had  chosen,  he  had 
no  help  from  his  father,  who  had  gone  on  adding  dol 
lar  to  dollar  till  he  was  one  of  the  richest  men  in  the 
place. 

Jacob  prospered  too ;  his  old  playmates,  who  had 
used  him  so  cruelly,  had  many  of  them  come  to  like 
him  ;  but  as  a  Dutchman  they  never  dreamt  of  asking 
him  to  their  houses  when  they  were  young  people, 
any  more  than  when  they  were  children.  He  was 
long  deeply  in  love  with  an  American  girl  whom  he 
had  never  spoken  to,  and  the  dream  of  his  life  was 
to  marry  an  American.  He  ended  by  marrying  the 
daughter  of  Pferd  the  brewer,  who  had  been  at  an 
American  school  in  Indianapolis,  and  had  come  home 
as  fragilely  and  nasally  American  as  anybody.  She 
made  him  a  good,  sickly,  fretful  wife ;  and  bore  him 
five  children,  of  whom  two  survived,  with  no  visible 
taint  of  their  German  origin. 

In  the  mean  time  Jacob's  father  had  died  and  left 
his  money  to  his  son,  with  the  understanding  that  he 
was  to  provide  for  his  mother,  who  would  gladly  have 
given  every  cent  to  him  and  been  no  burden  to  him, 


180  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

if  she  could.  He  took  her  home,  and  cared  tenderly 
for  her  as  long  as  she  lived ;  and  she  meekly  did  her 
best  to  abolish  herself  in  a  household  trying  so  hard 
to  be  American.  She  could  not  help  her  native  ac 
cent,  but  she  kept  silence  when  her  son's  wife  had 
company ;  and  when  her  eldest  granddaughter  began 
very  early  'to  have  American  callers,  she  went  out  of 
the  room ;  they  would  not  have  noticed  her  if  she  had 
staid. 

Before  this  Jacob  had  come  forward  publicly  in 
proportion  to  his  financial  importance  in  the  commu 
nity.  He  first  commended  himself  to  the  Better 
Element  by  crushing  out  a  strike  in  his  Buggy  Works, 
which  were  now  the  largest  business  interest  of  the 
place ;  and  he  rose  on  a  wave  of  municipal  reform  to 
such  a  height  of  favor  with  the  respectable  classes 
that  he  was  elected  on  a  citizens'  ticket  to  the  Legis 
lature.  In  the  reaction  which  followed  he  was  barely 
defeated  for  Congress,  and  was  talked  of  as  a  dark 
horse  who  might  be  put  up  for  the  governorship  some 
day  ;  but  those  who  knew  him  best  predicted  that  he 
would  not  get  far  in  politics,  where  his  bull-headed 
business  ways  would  bring  him  to  ruin  sooner  or 
later ;  they  said,  "  You  can't  swing  a  bolt  like  you  can 
a  strike." 

When  his  mother  died,  he  surprised  his  old  neigh 
bors  by  going  to  live  in  Chicago,  though  he  kept  his 
works  in  the  place  where  he  and  they  had  grown  up 
together.  His  wife  died  shortly  after,  and  within 
four  years  he  lost  his  three  eldest  children ;  his  son, 
it  was  said,  had  begun  to  go  wrong  first.  But  the 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  181 

rumor  of  his  increasing  wealth  drifted  back  from 
Chicago ;  he  was  heard  of  in  different  enterprises  and 
speculations ;  at  last  it  was  said  that  he  had  bought  a 
newspaper,  and  then  his  boyhood  friends  decided  that 
Jake  was  going  into  politics  again. 

In  the  wider  horizons  and  opener  atmosphere  of 
the  great  city  he  came  to  understand  better  that  to  be 
an  American  in  all  respects  was  not  the  best.  His 
mounting  sense  of  importance  began  to  be  retroactive 
in  the  direction  of  his  ancestral  home  ;  he  wrote  back 
to  the  little  town  near  Wiirzburg  which  his  people 
had  come  from,  and  found  that  he  had  relatives  still 
living  there,  some  of  whom  had  become  people  of 
substance ;  and  about  the  time  his  health  gave  way 
from  life-long  gluttony,  and  he  was  ordered  to  Carls 
bad,  he  had  pretty  much  made  up  his  mind  to  take 
his  younger  daughters  and  put  them  in  school  for  a 
year  or  two  in  Wtirzburg,  for  a  little  discipline  if  not 
education.  He  had  now  left  them  there,  to  learn  the 
language,  which  he  had  forgotten  with  such  heart 
burning  and  shame,  and  music,  for  which  they  had 
some  taste. 

The  twins  loudly  lamented  their  fate,  and  they 
parted  from  their  father  with  open  threats  of  running 
away ;  and  in  his  heart  he  did  not  altogether  blame 
them.  He  came  away  from  Wurzburg  raging  at  the 
disrespect  for  his  money  and  his  standing  in  business 
which  had  brought  him  a  more  galling  humiliation 
there  than  anything  he  had  suffered  in  his  boyhood 
at  Des  Vaches.  It  intensified  him  in  his  dear-bought 
Americanism  to  the  point  of  wishing  to  commit  lese- 


182  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

majesty  in  the  teeth  of  some  local  dignitaries  who  had 
snubbed  him,  and  who  seemed  to  enjoy  putting  our 
eagle  to  shame  in  his  person  ;  there  was  something 
like  the  bird  of  his  step-country  in  Stoller's  pale  eyes 
and  huge  beak. 


XXVIII. 

MARCH  sat  with  a  company  of  other  patients  in  the 
anteroom  of  the  doctor,  and  when  it  came  his  turn  to 
be  prodded  and  kneaded,  he  was  ashamed  at  being 
told  he  was  not  so  bad  a  case  as  he  had  dreaded. 
The  doctor  wrote  out  a  careful  dietary  for  him,  with 
a  prescription  of  a  certain  number  of  glasses  of  water 
at  a  certain  spring  and  a  certain  number  of  baths,  and 
a  rule  for  the  walks  he  was  to  take  before  and  after 
eating;  then  the  doctor  patted  him  on  the  shoulder 
and  pushed  him  caressingly  out  of  his  inner  office.  It 
was  too  late  to  begin  his  treatment  that  day,  but  he 
went  with  his  wife  to  buy  a  cup,  with  a  strap  for 
hanging  it  over  his  shoulder,  and  he  put  it  on  so  as 
to  be  an  invalid  with  the  others  at  once;  he  came 
near  forgetting  the  small  napkin  of  Turkish  towelling 
which  they  stuffed  into  their  cups,  but  happily  the 
shopman  called  him  back  in  time  to  sell  it  to  him. 

At  five  the  next  morning  he  rose,  and  on  his  way 
to  the  street  exchanged  with  the  servants  cleaning  the 
hotel  stairs  the  first  of  the  gloomy  Guten  Morgens 
which  usher  in  the  day  at  Carlsbad.  They  cannot  be 
so  finally  hopeless  as  they  sound ;  they  are  probably 


184  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

expressive  only  of  the  popular  despair  of  getting 
through  with  them  before  night;  but  March  heard  the 
salutations  sorrowfully  groaned  out  on  every  hand  as 
he  joined  the  straggling  current  of  invalids  which 
swelled  on  the  way  past  the  silent  shops  and  cafes  in 
the  Alte  Wiese,  till  it  filled  the  street,  and  poured  its 
thousands  upon  the  promenade  before  the  classic  col 
onnade  of  the  Miihlbrunn.  On  the  other  bank  of  the 
Tepl  the  Sprudel  flings  its  steaming  waters  by  irregu 
lar  impulses  into  the  air  under  a  pavilion  of  iron  and 
glass  ;  but  the  Miihlbrunn  is  the  source  of  most  resort. 
There  is  an  instrumental  concert  somewhere  in  Carls 
bad  from  early  rising  till  bedtime ;  and  now  at  the 
Miihlbrunn  there  was  an  orchestra  already  playing; 
and  under  the  pillared  porch,  as  well  as  before  it,  the 
multitude  shuffled  up  and  down,  draining  their  cups 
by  slow  sips,  and  then  taking  each  his  place  in  the 
interminable  line  moving  on  to  replenish  them  at  the 
spring. 

A  picturesque  majority  of  Polish  Jews,  whom  some 
vice  of  their  climate  is  said  peculiarly  to  fit  for  the 
healing  effects  of  Carlsbad,  most  took  his  eye  in  their 
long  gabardines  of  rusty  black  and  their  derby  hats 
of  plush  or  velvet,  with  their  corkscrew  curls  coming 
down  before  their  ears.  They  were  old  and  young, 
they  were  grizzled  and  red  and  black,  but  they  seemed 
all  well-to-do  ;  and  what  impresses  one  first  and  last 
at  Carlsbad  is  that  its  waters  are  mainly  for  the  heal 
ing  of  the  rich.  After  the  Polish  Jews,  the  Greek 
priests  of  Russian  race  were  the  most  striking  figures. 
There  were  types  of  Latin  ecclesiastics,  who  were 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  185 

striking  in  their  way  too ;  and  the  uniforms  of  certain 
Austrian  officers  and  soldiers  brightened  the  picture. 
Here  and  there  a  southern  face,  Italian  or  Spanish  or 
Levantine,  looked  passionately  out  of  the  mass  of  dull 
German  visages ;  for  at  Carlsbad  the  Germans,  more 
than  any  other  gentile  nation,  are  to  the  fore.  Their 
misfits,  their  absence  of  style,  imparted  the  prevalent 
effect ;  though  now  and  then  among  the  women  a 
Hungarian,  or  Pole,  or  Parisian,  or  American,  relieved 
the  eye  which  seeks  beauty  and  grace  rather  than  the 
domestic  virtues.  There  were  certain  faces,  types  of 
discomfort  and  disease,  which  appealed  from  the  be 
ginning  to  the  end.  A  young  Austrian,  yellow  as 
gold,  and  a  livid  South-American,  were  of  a  lasting 
fascination  to  March. 

What  most  troubled  him,  in  his  scrutiny  of  the 
crowd,  was  the  difficulty  of  assigning  people  to  their 
respective  nations,  and  he  accused  his  years  of  having 
dulled  his  perceptions ;  but  perhaps  it  was  from  their 
long  disuse  in  his  homogeneous  American  world.  The 
Americans  themselves  fused  with  the  European  races 
who  were  often  so  hard  to  make  out ;  his  fellow-citi 
zens  would  not  be  identified  till  their  bad  voices  gave 
them  away  ;  he  thought  the  women's  voices  the  worst. 

At  the  springs,  a  line  of  young  girls  with  a  steady 
mechanical  action  dipped  the  cups  into  the  steaming 
source,  and  passed  them  impersonally  up  to  their 
owners.  With  the  patients  at  the  Miihlbrunn  it  was 
often  a  half-hour  before  one's  turn  came,  and  at  all  a 
strict  etiquette  forbade  any  attempt  to  anticipate  it. 
The  water  was  merely  warm  and  flat,  and  after  the 


186          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

first  repulsion  one  could  forget  it.  March  formed  a 
childish  habit  of  counting  ten  between  the  sips,  and  of 
finishing  the  cup  with  a  gulp  which  ended  it  quickly ; 
he  varied  his  walks  between  cups  by  going  sometimes 
to  a  bridge  at  the  end  of  the  colonnade  where  a  group 
of  Triestines  were  talking  Venetian,  and  sometimes  to 
the  little  Park  beyond  the  Kurhaus,  where  some  old 
women  were  sweeping  up  from  the  close  sward  the 
yellow  leaves  which  the  trees  had  untidily  dropped 
overnight.  He  liked  to  sit  there  and  look  at  the  city 
beyond  the  Tepl,  where  it  climbed  the  wooded  heights 
in  terraces  till  it  lost  its  houses  in  the  skirts  and  folds 
of  the  forest.  Most  mornings  it  rained,  quietly,  ab 
sent-mindedly,  and  this,  with  the  chill  in  the  air,  deep 
ened  a  pleasant  illusion  of  Quebec  offered  by  the  upper 
town  across  the  stream  ;  but  there  were  sunny  morn 
ings  when  the  mountains  shone  softly  through  a  lus 
trous  mist,  and  the  air  was  almost  warm. 

Once  in  his  walk  he  found  himself  the  companion 
of  Burnamy's  employer,  whom  he  had  sometimes  noted 
in  the  line  at  the  Miihlbrunn,  waiting  his  turn,  cup  in 
hand,  with  a  face  of  sullen  impatience.  Stoller  ex 
plained  that  though  you  could  have  the  water  brought 
to  you  at  your  hotel,  he  chose  to  go  to  the  spring  for 
the  sake  of  the  air ;  it  was  something  you  had  got  to 
live  through ;  before  he  had  that  young  Burnamy  to 
help  him  he  did  not  know  what  to  do  with  his  time, 
but  now,  every  minute  he  was  not  eating  or  sleeping 
he  was  working  ;  his  cure  did  not  oblige  him  to  walk 
much.  He  examined  March,  with  a  certain  mixture 
of  respect  and  contempt,  upon  the  nature  of  the 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  187 

literary  life,  and  how  it  differed  from  the  life  of  a 
journalist.  He  asked  if  he  thought  Burnamy  would 
amount  to  anything  as  a  literary  man ;  he  so  far 
assented  to  March's  faith  in  him  as  to  say,  "  He's 
smart."  He  told  of  leaving  his  daughters  in  school 
at  Wiirzburg ;  and  upon  the  whole  he  moved  March 
with  a  sense  of  his  pathetic  loneliness  without  moving 
his  liking,  as  he  passed  lumberingly  on,  dangling  his 
cup. 

March  gave  his  own  cup  to  the  little  maid  at  his 
spring,  and  while  she  gave  it  to  a  second,  who  dipped 
it  and  handed  it  to  a  third  for  its  return  to  him,  he 
heard  an  unmistakable  fellow-countryman  saying  good- 
morning  to  them  all  in  English.  "  Are  you  going  to 
teach  them  United  States  ?  "  he  asked  of  a  face  with 
which  he  knew  such  an  appeal  would  not  fail. 

"  Well,"  the  man  admitted,  "  I  try  to  teach  them 
that  much.  They  like  it.  You  are  an  American  ?  I 
am  glad  of  it.  I  have  'most  lost  the  use  of  my  lungs, 
here.  I'm  a  great  talker,  and  I  talk  to  my  wife  till 
she's  about  dead ;  then  I'm  out  of  it  for  the  rest  of 
the  day ;  I  can't  speak  German." 

His  manner  was  the  free,  friendly  manner  of  the 
West.  He  must  be  that  sort  of  untravelled  American 
whom  March  had  so  seldom  met,  but  he  was  afraid  to 
ask  him  if  this  was  his  first  time  at  Carlsbad,  lest  it 
should  prove  the  third  or  fourth.  "  Are  you  taking 
the  cure  ? "  he  asked  instead. 

"  Oh,  no.  My  wife  is.  She'll  be  along  directly ;  I 
come  down  here  and  drink  the  waters  to  encourage 
her;  doctor  said  to.  That  gets  me  in  for  the  diet, 


188  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

too.  I've  e't  more  cooked  fruit  since  I  been  here  tlian 
I  ever  did  in  my  life  before.  Prunes  ?  My  Lord,  Fin 
full  o'  prunes  !  Well,  it  does  me  good  to  see  an 
American,  to  know  him.  I  couldn't  'a'  told  you,  if 
you  hadn't  have  spoken." 

"  Well,"  said  March,  "  I  shouldn't  have  been  so 
sure  of  you,  either,  by  your  looks." 

"  Yes,  we  can't  always  tell  ourselves  from  these 
Dutch.  But  they  know  us,  and  they  don't  want  us, 
except  just  for  one  thing,  and  that's  our  money.  I 
tell  you,  the  Americans  are  the  chumps  over  here. 
Soon's  they  got  all  our  money,  or  think  they  have, 
they  say,  '  Here,  you  Americans,  this  is  my  country ; 
you  get  off ' ;  and  we  got  to  get.  Ever  been  over 
before  ? " 

"  A  great  while  ago ;  so  long  that  T  can  hardly  be 
lieve  it." 

"  It's  my  first  time.  My  name's  Otterson :  I'm  from 
out  in  Iowa." 

March  gave  him  his  name,  and  added  that  he  was 
from  New  York. 

"  Yes.  I  thought  you  was  Eastern.  But  that 
wasn't  an  Eastern  man  you  was  just  with  ? " 

"  No;  he's  from  Chicago.     He's  a  Mr.  Stoller." 

"  Not  the  buggy  man  ?  " 

"  I  believe  he  makes  buggies." 

"  Well,  you  do  meet  everybody  here."  The  lowan 
was  silent  for  a  moment,  as  if  hushed  by  the  weighty 
thought.  "  I  wish  my  wife  could  have  seen  him.  I 
just  want  her  to  see  the  man  that  made  our  bue^y.  / 
don't  know  what's  keeping  her,  this  morning,"  he 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  189 

added,  apologetically.  "  Look  at  that  fellow,  will 
you,  tryin'  to  get  away  from  those  women !  "  A 
young  officer  was  doing  his  best  to  take  leave  of  two 
ladies,  who  seemed  to  be  mother  and  daughter ;  they 
detained  him  by  their  united  arts,  and  clung  to  him 
with  caressing  words  and  looks.  He  was  red  in  the 
face  with  his  polite  struggles  when  he  broke  from 
them  at  last.  "  How  they  do  hang  on  to  a  man,  over 
here  ! "  the  Iowa  man  continued.  "  And  the  Ameri 
cans  are  as  bad  as  any.  Why,  there's  one  ratty  little 
Englishman  up  at  our  place,  and  our  girls  just  swarm 
after  him ;  their  mothers  are  worse.  Well,  it's  so, 
Jenny,"  he  said  to  the  lady  who  had  joined  them,  and 
whom  March  turned  round  to  see  when  he  spoke  to 
her.  "  If  I  wanted  a  foreigner  I  should  go  in  for  a 
man.  And  these  officers !  Put  their  mws-taches  up 
at  night  in  curl-papers,  they  tell  me.  Introduce  you 
to  Mrs.  Otterson,  Mr.  March.  Well,  had  your  first 
glass,  yet,  Jenny  ?  I'm  just  going  for  my  second 
tumbler." 

He  took  his  wife  back  to  the  spring,  and  began  to 
tell  her  about  Stoller ;  she  made  no  sign  of  caring  for 
him  ;  and  March  felt  inculpated.  She  relented  a  little 
toward  him  as  they  drank  together ;  when  he  said  he 
must  be  going  to  breakfast  with  his  wife,  she  asked 
where  he  breakfasted,  and  said,  "  Why,  we  go  to  the 
Posthof,  too."  He  answered  that  then  they  should 
be  sure  some  time  to  meet  there ;  he  did  not  venture 
further ;  he  reflected  that  Mrs.  March  had  her  reluc 
tances  too ;  she  distrusted  people  who  had  amused  or 
interested  him  before  she  met  them. 


XXIX. 

BURNAMY  had  found  the  Posthof  for  them,  as  he 
had  found  most  of  the  other  agreeable  things  in  Carls 
bad,  which  he  brought  to  their  knowledge  one  by  one, 
with  such  forethought  that  March  said  he  hoped  he 
should  be  cared  for  in  his  declining  years  as  an  editor 
rather  than  as  a  father ;  there  was  no  tenderness  like 
a  young  contributor's. 

Many  people  from  the  hotels  on  the  hill  found  at 
Pupp's  just  the  time  and  space  between  their  last  cup 
of  water  and  their  first  cup  of  coffee  which  are  pre 
scribed  at  Carlsbad;  but  the  Marches  were  aware 
somehow  from  the  beginning  that  Pupp's  had  not  the 
hold  upon  the  world  at  breakfast  which  it  had  at  the 
mid-day  dinner,  or  at  supper  on  the  evenings  when 
the  concert  was  there.  Still  it  was  amusing,  and  they 
were  patient  of  Burnamy's  delay  till  he  could  get  a 
morning  off  from  Stoller  and  go  with  them  to  the 
Posthof.  He  met  Mrs.  March  in  the  reading-room, 
where  March  was  to  join  them  on  his  way  from  the 
springs  with  his  bag  of  bread.  The  earlier  usage  of 
buying  the  delicate  pink  slices  of  Westphalia  ham, 
which  form  the  chief  motive  of  a  Carlsbad  breakfast, 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  191 

at  a  certain  shop  in  the  town,  and  carrying  them  to 
the  cafe  with  you,  is  no  longer  of  such  binding  force 
as  the  custom  of  getting  your  bread  at  the  Swiss 
bakery.  You  choose  it  yourself  at  the  counter,  which 
begins  to  be  crowded  by  half  past  seven,  and  when 
you  have  collected  the  prescribed  loaves  into  the  bas 
ket  of  metallic  filigree  given  you  by  one  of  the  baker's 
maids,  she  puts  it  into  a  tissue-paper  bag  of  a  gay  red 
color,  and  you  join  the  other  invalids  streaming  away 
from  the  bakery,  their  paper  bags  making  a  festive 
rustling  as  they  go. 

Two  roads  lead  out  of  the  town  into  the  lovely 
meadow-lands,  a  good  mile  up  the  brawling  Tepl,  be 
fore  they  join  on  the  right  side  of  the  torrent,  where 
the  Posthof  lurks  nestled  under  trees  whose  boughs 
let  the  sun  and  rain  impartially  through  upon  its  army 
of  little  tables.  By  this  time  the  slow  omnibus  ply 
ing  between  Carlsbad  and  some  villages  in  the  valley 
beyond  has  crossed  from  the  left  bank  to  the  right, 
and  keeps  on  past  half  a  dozen  other  cafes,  where 
patients  whose  prescriptions  marshal  them  beyond  the 
Posthof  drop  off  by  the  dozens  and  scores. 

The  road  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Tepl  is  wild  and 
overhung  at  points  with  wooded  steeps,  when  it  leaves 
the  town ;  but  on  the  right  it  is  bordered  with  shops 
and  restaurants  a  great  part  of  its  length.  In  leafy 
nooks  between  these,  uphill  walks  begin  their  climb 
of  the  mountains,  from  the  foot  of  votive  shrines  set 
round  with  tablets  commemorating  in  German,  French, 
Russian,  Hebrew,  Magyar  and  Czech,  the  cure  of  high- 
wellborns  of  all  those  races  and  languages.  Booths 


192  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

glittering  with  the  lapidary's  work  in  the  cheaper 
gems,  or  full  of  the  ingenious  figures  of  the  toy-mak 
ers,  alternate  with  the  shrines  and  the  cafes  on  the  way 
to  the  Posthof,  and  with  their  shoulders  against  the 
overhanging  cliff,  spread  for  the  passing  crowd  a  lure 
of  Viennese  jewelry  in  garnets,  opals,  amethysts,  and 
the  like,  and  of  such  Bohemian  playthings  as  carrot- 
eating  rabbits,  worsted-working  cats,  dancing-bears, 
and  peacocks  that  strut  about  the  feet  of  the  passers 
and  expand  their  iridescent  tails  in  mimic  pride. 

Burnamy  got  his  charges  with  difficulty  by  the 
shrines  in  which  they  felt  the  far-reflected  charm  of  the 
crucifixes  of  the  white-hot  Italian  highways  of  their 
early  travel,  and  by  the  toy-shops  where  they  had  a 
mechanical,  out-dated  impulse  to  get  something  for 
the  children,  ending  in  a  pang  for  the  fact  that  they 
were  children  no  longer.  He  waited  politely  while 
Mrs.  March  made  up  her  mind  that  she  would  not  buy 
any  laces  of  the  motherly  old  women  who  showed 
them  under  pent-roofs  on  way-side  tables;  and  he 
waited  patiently  at  the  gate  of  the  flower-gardens  be 
yond  the  shops  where  March  bought  lavishly  of  sweet- 
pease  from  the  businesslike  flower-woman,  and  feigned 
a  grateful  joy  in  her  because  she  knew  no  English, 
and  gave  him  a  chance  of  speaking  his  German. 

"  You'll  find,"  he  said,  as  they  crossed  the  road 
again,  "  that  it's  well  to  trifle  a  good  deal ;  it  makes 
the  time  pass.  I  should  still  be  lagging  along  in  my 
thirties  if  it  hadn't  been  for  fooling,  and  here  I  am 
well  on  in  my  fifties,  and  Mrs.  March  is  younger  than 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  193 

They  were  at  the  gate  of  the  garden  and  grounds 
of  the  cafe  at  last,  and  a  turn  of  the  path  brought 
them  to  the  prospect  of  its  tables,  under  the  trees, 
between  the  two  long  glazed  galleries  where  the  break- 
fasters  take  refuge  at  other  tables  when  it  rains ;  it 
rains  nearly  always,  and  the  trunks  of  the  trees  are  as 
green  with  damp  as  if  painted ;  but  that  morning  the 
sun  was  shining.  At  the  verge  of  the  open  space  a 
group  of  pretty  serving-maids,  each  with  her  name  on 
a  silver  band  pinned  upon  her  breast,  met  them  and 
bade  them  a  Guten  Morgen  of  almost  cheerful  note, 
but  gave  way  to  an  eager  little  smiling  blonde,  who 
came  pushing  down  the  path  at  sight  of  Burnamy, 
and  claimed  him  for  her  own. 

"  Ah,  Lili !  We  want  an  extra  good  table,  this 
morning.  These  are  some  American  Excellencies,  and 
you  must  do  your  best  for  them." 

"  Oh,  yes,"  the  girl  answered  in  English,  after  a 
radiant  salutation  of  the  Marches ;  "  I  get  you  one. 
You  are  a  little  more  formerly,  to-day,  and  I  didn't 
had  one  already." 

She  ran  among  the  tables  along  the  edge  of  the 
western  edge  of  the  gallery,  and  was  far  beyond  hear 
ing  his  protest  that  he  was  not  earlier  than  usual  when 
she  beckoned  him  to  the  table  she  had  found.  She 
had  crowded  it  in  between  two  belonging  to  other 
girls,  and  by  the  time  her  breakfasters  came  up  she 
was  ready  for  their  order,  with  the  pouting  pretence 
that  the  girls  always  tried  to  rob  her  of  the  best 
places.  Burnamy  explained  proudly,  when  she  went, 
that  none  of  the  other  girls  ever  got  an  advantage  of 
M 


194  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

her;  she  had  more  custom  than  any  three  of  them, 
and  she  had  hired  a  man  to  help  her  carry  her  orders. 
The  girls  were  all  from  the  neighboring  villages,  he 
said,  and  they  lived  at  home  in  the  winter  on  their 
summer  tips;  their  wages  were  nothing,  or  less,  for 
sometimes  they  paid  for  their  places. 

"  What  a  mass  of  information ! "  said  March. 
"  How  did  you  come  by  it  ?  " 

"  Newspaper  habit  of  interviewing  the  universe." 

"  It's  not  a  bad  habit,  if  one  doesn't  carry  it  too  far. 
How  did  Lili  learn  her  English  ?" 

"  She  takes  lessons  in  the  winter.  She's  a  perfect 
little  electric  motor.  I  don't  believe  any  Yankee  girl 
could  equal  her." 

"  She  would  expect  to  marry  a  millionaire  if  she 
did.  What  astonishes  one  over  here  is  to  see  how 
contentedly  people  prosper  along  on  their  own  level. 
And  the  women  do  twice  the  work  of  the  men  with 
out  expecting  to  equal  them  in  any  other  way.  At 
Pupp's,  if  we  go  to  one  end  of  the  out-door  restau 
rant,  it  takes  three  men  to  wait  on  us :  one  to  bring 
our  coffee  or  tea,  another  to  bring  our  bread  and  meat, 
and  another  to  make  out  our  bill,  and  I  have  to  tip  all 
three  of  them.  If  we  go  to  the  other  end,  one  girl 
serves  us,  and  I  have  to  give  only  one  fee ;  I  make 
it  less  than  the  least  I  give  any  three  of  the  men 
waiters." 

"  You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  that,"  said  his  wife. 

"I'm  not.  I'm  simply  proud  of  your  sex,  my 
dear." 

"  Women  do  nearly  everything,  here,"  said  Burna- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  195 

my,  impartially.  "  They  built  that  big  new  Kaiserbad 
building :  mixed  the  mortar,  carried  the  hods,  and  laid 
the  stone." 

"  That  makes  me  prouder  of  the  sex  than  ever. 
But  come,  Mr.  Burnamy  !  Isn't  there  anybody  of 
polite  interest  that  you  know  of  in  this  crowd  ? " 

"  Well,  I  can't  say,"  Burnamy  hesitated. 

The  breakfasters  had  been  thronging  into  the  grove 
and  the  galleries;  the  tables  were  already  filled,  and 
men  were  bringing  other  tables  on  their  heads,  and 
making  places  for  them,  with  entreaties  for  pardon 
everywhere;  the  proprietor  was  anxiously  directing 
them ;  the  pretty  serving-girls  were  running  to  and 
from  the  kitchen  in  a  building  apart  with  shrill,  sweet 
promises  of  haste.  The  morning  sun  fell  broken 
through  the  leaves  on  the  gay  hats  and  dresses  of  the 
ladies,  and  dappled  the  figures  of  the  men  with  harle 
quin  patches  of  light  and  shade.  A  tall  woman,  with 
a  sort  of  sharpened  beauty,  and  an  artificial  perma 
nency  of  tint  in  her  cheeks  and  yellow  hair,  came 
trailing  herself  up  the  sun-shot  path,  and  found,  with 
hardy  insistence  upon  the  publicity,  places  for  the 
surly-looking,  down-faced  young  man  behind  her,  and 
for  her  maid  and  her  black  poodle ;  the  dog  was  like 
the  black  poodle  out  of  Faust.  Burnamy  had  heard 
her  history;  in  fact,  he  had  already  roughed  out  a 
poem  on  it,  which  he  called  Europa,  not  after  the  old 
fable,  but  because  it  seemed  to  him  that  she  expressed 
Europe,  on  one  side  of  its  civilization,  and  had  an 
authorized  place  in  its  order,  as  she  would  not  have 
had  in  ours.  She  was  where  she  was  by  a  toleration 


196  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

of  certain  social  facts  which  corresponds  in  Europe  to 
our  reverence  for  the  vested  interests.  In  her  history 
there  had  been  officers  and  bankers ;  even  foreign  dig 
nitaries  ;  now  there  was  this  sullen  young  fellow.  .  .  . 
Burnamy  had  wondered  if  it  would  do  to  offer  his 
poem  to  March,  but  the  presence  of  the  original 
abashed  him,  and  in  his  mind  he  had  torn  the  poem 
up,  with  a  heartache  for  its  aptness. 

"  I  don't  believe,"  he  said,  "  that  I  recognize  any 
celebrities  here." 

"I'm  sorry,"  said  March.  "Mrs.  March  would 
have  been  glad  of  some  Hoheits,  some  Grafs  and 
Grafins,  or  a  few  Excellenzes,  or  even  some  mere  well- 
borns.  But  we  must  try  to  get  along  with  the  pict- 
uresqueness." 

"  I'm  satisfied  with  the  picturesqueness,"  said  his 
wife.  "  Don't  worry  about  me,  Mr.  Burnamy.  ft  hy 
can't  we  have  this  sort  of  thing  at  home  ?  " 

"  We're  getting  something  like  it  in  the  roof -gar 
dens,"  said  March.  "  We  couldn't  have  it  naturally 
because  the  climate  is  against  it,  with  us.  At  this 
time  in  the  morning  over  there,  the  sun  would  be 
burning  the  life  out  of  the  air,  and  the  flies  would  be 
swarming  on  every  table.  At  nine  p.  M.  the  mos 
quitoes  would  be  eating  us  up  in  such  a  grove  as  this. 
So  we  have  to  use  artifice,  and  lift  our  Posthof  above 
the  fly-line  and  the  mosquito-line  into  the  night  air. 
I  haven't  seen  a  fly  since  I  came  to  Europe.  I  really 
miss  them ;  it  makes  me  homesick." 

"  There  are  plenty  in  Italy,"  his  wife  suggested. 

"  We  must  get  down   there   before  we  go  home. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  197 

But  why  did  nobody  ever  tell  us  that  there  were  no 
flies  in  Germany  ?  Why  did  no  traveller  ever  put  it 
in  his  book?  When  your  stewardess  said  so  on  the 
steamer,  I  remember  that  you  regarded  it  as  a  bluff." 
He  turned  to  Burnamy,  who  was  listening  with  the 
deference  of  a  contributor :  "  Isn't  Lili  rather  long  ?  I 
mean  for  such  a  very  prompt  person.  Oh,  no  !  " 

But  Burnamy  got  to  his  feet,  and  shouted  "  Frau- 
lein  !  "  to  Lili ;  with  her  hireling  at  her  heels  she  was 
flying  down  a  distant  aisle  between  the  tables.  She 
called  back,  with  a  face  laughing  over  her  shoulder, 
"  In  a  minute  ! "  and  vanished  in  the  crowd. 

"  Does  that  mean  anything  in  particular  ?  There's 
really  no  hurry." 

"Oh,  I  think  she'll  come  now,"  said  Burnamy. 
March  protested  that  he  had  only  been  amused  at  Lili's 
delay;  but  his  wife  scolded  him  for  his  impatience; 
she  begged  Burnamy's  pardon,  and  repeated  civilities 
passed  between  them.  She  asked  if  he  did  not  think 
some  of  the  young  ladies  were  pretty  beyond  the 
European  average ;  a  very  few  had  style ;  the  mothers 
were  mostly  fat,  and  not  stylish  ;  it  was  well  not  to 
regard  the  fathers  too  closely  ;  several  old  gentlemen 
were  clearing  their  throats  behind  their  newspapers, 
with  noises  that  made  her  quail.  There  was  no  one 
so  effective  as  the  Austrian  officers,  who  put  them 
selves  a  good  deal  on  show,  bowing  from  their  hips  to 
favored  groups ;  with  the  sun  glinting  from  their  eye 
glasses,  and  their  hands  pressing  their  sword-hilts, 
they  moved  between  the  tables  with  the  gait  of  tight- 
laced  women. 


198  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  They  all  wear  corsets,"  Burnamy  explained. 

"  How  much  you  know  already  !  "  said  Mrs.  March. 
"  I  can  see  that  Europe  won't  be  lost  on  you  in  any 
thing.  Oh,  who's  that?"  A  lady  whose  costume 
expressed  Paris  at  every  point  glided  up  the  middle 
aisle  of  the  grove  with  a  graceful  tilt.  Burnamy  was 
silent.  "  She  must  be  an  American.  Do  you  know 
who  she  is  ? " 

"Yes."  He  hesitated  a  little  to  name  a  woman 
whose  tragedy  had  once  filled  the  newspapers. 

Mrs.  March  gazed  after  her  with  the  fascination 
which  such  tragedies  inspire.  "  What  grace !  Is  she 
beautiful  ? " 

"  Very."  Burnamy  had  not  obtruded  his  know 
ledge,  but  somehow  Mrs.  March  did  not  like  his 
knowing  who  she  was,  and  how  beautiful.  She  asked 
March  to  look,  but  he  refused. 

''Those  things  are  too  squalid,"  he  said,  and  she 
liked  him  for  saying  it ;  she  hoped  it  would  not  be 
lost  upon  Burnamy. 

One  of  the  waitresses  tripped  on  the  steps  near 
them  and  flung  the  burden  off  her  tray  on  the  stone 
floor  before  her;  some  of  the  dishes  broke,  and  the 
breakfast  was  lost.  Tears  came  into  the  girl's  eyes 
and  rolled  down  her  hot  cheeks.  "  There  !  That  is 
what  I  call  tragedy,"  said  March.  "  She'll  have  to 
pay  for  those  things." 

"  Oh,  give  her  the  money,  dearest ! " 

"  How  can  I  ?  " 

The  girl  had  just  got  away  with  the  ruin  when  Lili 
and  her  hireling  behind  her  came  bearing  down  upon 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  199 

them  with  their  three  substantial  breakfasts  on  two 
well-laden  trays.  She  forestalled  Burnamy's  re 
proaches  for  her  delay,  laughing  and  bridling,  while 
she  set  down  the  dishes  of  ham  and  tongue  and  egg, 
and  the  little  pots  of  coffee  and  frothed  milk. 

"  I  could  not  so  soon  I  wanted,  because  I  was  to 
serve  an  American  princess." 

Mrs.  March  started  with  proud  conjecture  of  one  of 
those  noble  international  marriages  which  fill  our 
women  with  vainglory  for  such  of  their  compatriots 
as  make  them. 

"  Oh,  come  now,  Lili !  "  said  Burnamy.  "  We  have 
queens  in  America,  but  nothing  so  low  as  princesses. 
This  was  a  queen,  wasn't  it  ? " 

She  referred  the  case  to  her  hireling,  who  confirmed 
her.  "  All  people  say  it  is  princess,"  she  insisted. 

"  Well,  if  she's  a  princess  we  must  look  her  up  after 
breakfast,"  said  Burnamy.  "Where  is  she  sitting?" 

She  pointed  at  a  corner  so  far  off  on  the  other  side 
that  no  one  could  be  distinguished,  and  then  was 
gone,  with  a  smile  flashed  over  her  shoulder,  and  her 
hireling  trying  to  keep  up  with  her. 

"  We're  all  very  proud  of  Lili's  having  a  hired 
man,"  said  Burnamy.  "  We  think  it  reflects  credit 
on  her  customers." 

March  had  begun  his  breakfast  with  the  voracious 
appetite  of  an  early-rising  invalid.  "  What  coffee  !  " 
He  drew  a  long  sigh  after  the  first  draught. 

"  It's  said  to  be  made  of  burnt  figs,"  said  Burnamy, 
from  the  inexhaustible  advantage  of  his  few  days'  pri 
ority  in  Carlsbad. 


200  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  Then  let's  have  burnt  figs  introduced  at  home  as 
soon  as  possible.  But  why  burnt  figs  ?  That  seems 
one  of  those  doubts  which  are  much  more  difficult 
than  faith." 

"It's  not  only  burnt  figs,"  said  Burnamy,  with 
amiable  superiority,  "  if  it  is  burnt  figs,  but  it's  made 
after  a  formula  invented  by  a  consensus  of  physicians, 
and  enforced  by  the  municipality.  Every  cafe  in 
Carlsbad  makes  the  same  kind  of  coffee  and  charges 
the  same  price  " 

"  You  are  leaving  us  very  little  to  find  out  for  our 
selves,"  sighed  March. 

"  Oh,  I  know  a  lot  more  things.  Are  you  fond  of 
fishing?" 

"  Not  very." 

"  You  can  get  a  permit  to  catch  trout  in  the  Tepl, 
but  they  send  an  official  with  you  who  keeps  count, 
and  when  you  have  had  your  sport,  the  trout  belong 
to  the  municipality  just  as  they  did  before  you  caught 
them." 

"  I  don't  see  why  that  isn't  a  good  notion :  the  last 
thing  I  should  want  to  do  would  be  to  eat  a  fish  that 
I  had  caught,  and  that  I  was  personally  acquainted 
with.  Well,  I'm  never  going  away  from  Carlsbad.  I 
don't  wonder  people  get  their  doctors  to  tell  them  to 
come  back." 

Burnamy  told  them  a  number  of  facts  he  said  Stol- 
ler  had  got  together  about  the  place,  and  had  given 
him  to  put  in  shape.  It  was  run  in  the  interest  of 
people  who  had  got  out  of  order,  so  that  they  would 
keep  coming  to  get  themselves  in  order  again ;  you 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  201 

could  hardly  buy  an  unwholesome  meal  in  the  town; 
all  the  cooking  was  kurgemass.  He  won  such  favor 
with  his  facts  that  he  could  not  stop  in  time :  he  said 
to  March,  "  But  if  you  ever  should  have  a  fancy  for  a 
fish  of  your  personal  acquaintance,  there's  a  restau 
rant  up  the  Tepl,  where  they  let  you  pick  out  your 
trout  in  the  water ;  then  they  catch  him  and  broil  him 
for  you,  and  you  know  what  you  are  eating." 

"  Is  it  a  municipal  restaurant  ?  " 

"  Semi-municipal,"  said  Burnamy,  laughing. 

"  We'll  take  Mrs.  March,"  said  her  husband,  and 
in  her  gravity  Burnamy  felt  the  limitations  of  a  wom 
an's  sense  of  humor,  which  always  define  themselves 
for  men  so  unexpectedly. 

He  did  what  he  could  to  get  back  into  her  good 
graces  by  telling  her  what  he  knew  about  distinctions 
and  dignities  that  he  now  saw  among  the  breakfasters. 
The  crowd  had  now  grown  denser  till  the  tables  were 
set  together  in  such  labyrinths  that  any  one  who  left 
the  central  aisle  was  lost  in  them.  The  serving-girls 
ran  more  swiftly  to  and  fro,  responding  with  a  more 
nervous  shrillness  to  the  calls  of  "  Fraulein !  Frau- 
lein ! "  that  followed  them.  The  proprietor,  in  his 
bare  head,  stood  like  one  paralyzed  by  his  prosperity, 
which  sent  up  all  round  him  the  clash  of  knives  and 
crockery,  and  the  confusion  of  tongues.  It  was  more 
than  an  hour  before  Burnamy  caught  Lili's  eye,  and 
three  times  she  promised  to  come  and  be  paid  before 
she  came.  Then  she  said,  "  It  is  so  nice,  when  you 
stay  a  little,"  and  when  he  told  her  of  the  poor  Frau 
lein  who  had  broken  the  dishes  in  her  fall  near  them, 


202          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

she  almost  wept  with  tenderness;  she  almost  winked 
with  wickedness  when  he  asked  if  the  American  prin 
cess  was  still  in  her  place. 

"  Do  go  and  see  who  it  can  be ! "  Mrs.  March  en 
treated.  "  We'll  wait  here,"  and  he  obeyed.  "  I  am 
not  sure  that  I  like  him,"  she  said,  as  soon  as  he  was 
out  of  hearing.  "  I  don't  know  but  he's  coarse,  after 
all.  Do  you  approve  of  his  knowing  so  many  peo 
ple's  taches  already  ? " 

"  Would  it  be  any  better  later  ? "  he  asked  in  turn. 
"  He  seemed  to  find  you  interested." 

"  It's  very  different  with  us ;  we're  not  young,"  she 
urged,  only  half  seriously. 

Her  husband  laughed.  "  I  see  you  want  me  to 
defend  him.  Oh,  hello  !  "  he  cried,  and  she  saw  Bur- 
namy  coming  toward  them  with  a  young  lady,  who 
was  nodding  to  them  from  as  far  as  she  could  see 
them.  "  This  is  the  easy  kind  of  thing  that  makes 
you  blush  for  the  author  if  you  find  it  in  a  novel." 


XXX. 

MRS.  March  fairly  took  Miss  Triscoe  in  her  arms  to 
kiss  her.  "  Do  you  know  I  felt  it  must  be  you,  ali 
the  time !  When  did  you  come  ?  Where  is  your 
father  ?  What  hotel  are  you  staying  at  ? " 

It  appeared,  while  Miss  Triscoe  was  shaking  hands 
with  March,  that  it  was  last  night,  and  her  father  was 
finishing  his  breakfast,  and  it  was  one  of  the  hotels 
on  the  hill.  On  the  way  back  to  her  father  it  ap 
peared  that  he  wished  to  consult  March's  doctor ;  not 
that  there  was  anything  the  matter. 

The  general  himself  was  not  much  softened  by  the 
reunion  with  his  f ellow- Americans ;  he  confided  to 
them  that  his  coffee  was  poisonous;  but  he  seemed, 
standing  up  with  the  Paris-New  York  Chronicle  folded 
in  his  hand,  to  have  drunk  it  all.  Was  March  going 
off  on  his  forenoon  tramp?  He  believed  that  was 
part  of  the  treatment,  which  was  probably  all  hum 
bug,  though  he  thought  of  trying  it,  now  he  was 
there.  He  was  told  the  walks  were  fine ;  he  looked  at 
Burnamy  as  if  he  had  been  praising  them,  and  Bur- 
namy  said  he  had  been  wondering  if  March  would  not 
like  to  try  a  mountain  path  back  to  his  hotel ;  he  said, 


204  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

not  so  sincerely,  that  he  thought  Mrs.  March  would 
like  it. 

"  I  shall  like  your  account  of  it,"  she  answered. 
"  But  I'll  walk  back  on  a  level,  if  you  please." 

"  Oh,  yes,"  Miss  Triscoe  pleaded,  "  come  with  us  !  " 
She  played  a  little  comedy  of  meaning  to  go  back 
with  her  father  so  gracefully  that  Mrs.  March  herself 
could  scarcely  have  told  just  where  the  girl's  real 
purpose  of  going  with  Burnamy  began  to  be  evident, 
or  just  how  she  managed  to  make  General  Triscoe  beg 
to  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  Mrs.  March  back  to  her 
hotel. 

March  went  with  the  young  people  across  the 
meadow  behind  the  Posthof  and  up  into  the  forest, 
which  began  at  the  base  of  the  mountain.  At  first 
they  tried  to  keep  him  in  the  range  of  their  talk ;  but 
he  fell  behind  more  and  more,  and  as  the  talk  nar 
rowed  to  themselves  it  was  less  and  less  possible  to 
include  him  in  it.  When  it  began  to  concern  their 
common  appreciation  of  the  Marches,  they  even  tried 
to  get  out  of  his  hearing. 

"  They're  so  young  in  their  thoughts,"  said  Burna 
my,  "  and  they  seem  as  much  interested  in  everything 
as  they  could  have  been  thirty  years  ago.  They  be 
long  to  a  time  when  the  world  was  a  good  deal  fresher 
than  it  is  now;  don't  you  think?  I  mean,  in  the 
eighteen-sixties." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  can  see  that." 

"  I  don't  know  why  we  shouldn't  be  born  older  in 
each  generation  than  people  were  in  the  last.  Per 
haps  we  are,"  he  suggested. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  205 

"  I  don't  know  how  you  mean,"  said  the  girl,  keep 
ing  vigorously  up  with  him ;  she  let  him  take  the 
jacket  she  threw  off,  but  she  would  not  have  his  hand 
at  the  little  steeps  where  he  wanted  to  give  it. 

"  I  don't  believe  I  can  quite  make  it  out  myself. 
But  fancy  a  man  that  began  to  act  at  twenty,  quite 
unconsciously  of  course,  from  the  past  experience  of 
the  whole  race — " 

"  He  would  be  rather  a  dreadful  person,  wouldn't 
he?" 

"  Rather  monstrous,  yes,"  he  owned,  with  a  laugh. 
"  But  that's  where  the  psychological  interest  would 
come  in." 

As  if  she  did  not  feel  the  notion  quite  pleasant  she 
turned  from  it.  "  I  suppose  you've  been  writing  all 
sorts  of  things  since  you  came  here." 

"  Well,  it  hasn't  been  such  a  great  while  as  it's 
seemed,  and  I've  had  Mr.  Stoller's  psychological  in 
terests  to  look  after." 

"  Oh,  yes !     Do  you  like  him  ? " 

"  I  don't  know.  He's  a  lump  of  honest  selfishness. 
He  isn't  bad.  You  know  where  to  have  him.  He's 
simple,  too." 

"You  mean,  like  Mr.  March?" 

"I  didn't  mean  that;  but  why  not?  They're  not 
of  the  same  generation,  but  Stoller  isn't  modern." 

"  I'm  very  curious  to  see  him,"  said  the  girl. 

"  Do  you  want  me  to  introduce  him  ? " 

"  You  can  introduce  him  to  papa." 

They  stopped  and  looked  across  the  curve  of  the 
mounting  path,  down  on  March,  who  had  sunk  on  a 


206          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

way-side  seat,  and  was  mopping  his  forehead.  He 
saw  them,  and  called  up :  "  Don't  wait  for  me.  I'll 
join  you,  gradually." 

"  I  don't  want  to  lose  you,"  Burnamy  called  back, 
but  he  kept  on  with  Miss  Triscoe.  "  I  want  to  get 
the  Hirschensprung  in,"  he  explained.  "  It's  the  cliff 
where  a  hunted  deer  leaped  down  several  hundred  feet 
to  get  away  from  an  emperor  who  was  after  him." 

"  Oh,  yes.     They  have  them  everywhere." 

"  Do  they  ?  Well,  anyway,  there's  a  noble  view  up 
there." 

There  was  no  view  on  the  way  up.  The  Germans' 
notion  of  a  woodland  is  everywhere  that  of  a  dense 
forest  such  as  their  barbarous  tribes  primevally  herded 
in.  It  means  the  close-set  stems  of  trees,  with  their 
tops  interwoven  in  a  roof  of  boughs  and  leaves  so 
densely  that  you  may  walk  dry  through  it  almost  as 
long  as  a  German  shower  lasts.  When  the  sun  shines 
there  is  a  pleasant  greenish  light  in  the  aisles,  shot 
here  and  there  with  the  gold  that  trickles  through. 
There  is  nothing  of  the  accident  of  an  American  wood 
in  these  forests,  which  have  been  watched  and  weeded 
by  man  ever  since  they  burst  the  soil.  They  remain 
nurseries,  but  they  have  the  charm  which  no  human 
care  can  alienate.  The  smell  of  their  bark  and  their 
leaves,  and  of  the  moist,  flowerless  earth  about  their 
roots,  came  to  March  where  he  sat  rich  with  the  mem 
ories  of  his  country-bred  youth,  and  drugged  all  con 
sciousness  of  his  long  life  in  cities  since,  and  made 
him  a  part  of  nature,  with  dulled  interests  and  dimmed 
perspectives,  so  that  for  the  moment  he  had  the  en- 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  207 

joyment  of  exemption  from  care.  There  was  no  wild 
life  to  penetrate  his  isolation  ;  no  birds,  not  a  squirrel, 
not  an  insect ;  an  old  man  who  had  bidden  him  good- 
morning,  as  he  came  up,  kept  fumbling  at  the  path 
with  his  hoe,  and  was  less  intrusive  than  if  he  had 
not  been  there. 

March  thought  of  the  impassioned  existence  of 
these  young  people  playing  the  inevitable  comedy  of 
hide  and  seek  which  the  youth  of  the  race  has  played 
•  from  the  beginning  of  time.  The  other  invalids  who 
haunted  the  forest,  and  passed  up  and  down  before 
him  in  fulfilment  of  their  several  prescriptions,  had  a 
thin  unreality  in  spite  of  the  physical  bulk  that  pre 
vailed  among  them,  and  they  heightened  the  relief 
that  the  forest-spirit  brought  him  from  the  strenuous 
contact  of  that  young  drama.  He  had  been  almost 
painfully  aware  that  the  persons  in  it  had  met,  how 
ever  little  they  knew  it,  with  an  eagerness  intensified 
by  their  brief  separation,  and  he  fancied  it  was  the 
girl  who  had  unconsciously  operated  their  reunion  in 
response  to  the  young  man's  longing,  her  will  making 
itself  electrically  felt  through  space  by  that  sort  of 
wireless  telegraphy  which  love  has  long  employed, 
and  science  has  just  begun  to  imagine. 

He  would  have  been  willing  that  they  should  get 
home  alone,  but  he  knew  that  his  wife  would  require 
an  account  of  them  from  him,  and  though  he  could 
have  invented  something  of  the  kind,  if  it  came  to  the 
worst,  he  was  aware  that  it  would  not  do  for  him  to 
arrive  without  them.  The  thought  goaded  him  from 
his  seat,  and  he  joined  the  upward  procession  of  his 


208  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

fellow-sick,  as  it  met  another  procession  straggling 
downward ;  the  ways  branched  in  all  directions,  with 
people  on  them  everywhere,  bent  upon  building  up  in 
a  month  the  health  which  they  would  spend  the  rest 
of  the  year  in  demolishing. 

He  came  upon  his  charges  unexpectedly  at  a  turn 
of  the  path,  and  Miss  Triscoe  told  him  that  he  ought 
to  have  been  with  them  for  the  view  from  the  Hir- 
schensprung.  It  was  magnificent,  she  said,  and  she 
made  Burnamy  corroborate  her  praise  of  it,  and  agree- 
with  her  that  it  was  worth  the  climb  a  thousand 
times;  he  modestly  accepted  the  credit  she  appeared 
willing  to  give  him,  of  inventing  the  Hirschensprung 


XXXI. 

BETWEEN  his  work  for  Stoller  and  what  sometimes 
seemed  the  obstruct! veness  of  General  Triscoe,  Bur- 
namy  was  not  very  much  with  Miss  Triscoe.  He  was 
not  devout,  but  he  went  every  Sunday  to  the  pretty 
English  church  on  the  hill,  where  he  contributed  be 
yond  his  means  to  the  support  of  the  English  clergy 
on  the  Continent,  for  the  sake  of  looking  at  her  back 
hair  during  the  service,  and  losing  himself  in  the 
graceful  lines  which  denned  the  girl's  figure  from  the 
slant  of  her  flowery  hat  to  the  point  where  the  pew- 
top  crossed  her  elastic  waist.  One  happy  morning 
the  general  did  not  come  to  church,  and  he  had  the 
fortune  to  walk  home  with  her  to  her  pension,  where 
she  lingered  with  him  a  moment,  and  almost  made 
him  believe  she  might  be  going  to  ask  him  to  come 
in. 

The  next  evening,  when  he  was  sauntering  down 
the  row  of  glittering  shops  beside  the  Tepl,  with  Mrs. 
March,  they  overtook  the  general  and  his  daughter  at 
a  place  where  the  girl  was  admiring  some  stork-scis 
sors  in  the  window ;  she  said  she  wished  she  were 
still  little,  so  that  she  couM  get  them.  They  walked 


210          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

home  with  the  Triscoes,  and  then  he  hurried  Mrs. 
March  back  to  the  shop.  The  man  had  already  put  up 
his  shutters,  and  was  just  closing  his  door,  but  Bur- 
namy  pushed  in,  and  asked  to  look  at  the  stork-scis 
sors  they  had  seen  in  the  window.  The  gas  was  out, 
and  the  shopman  lighted  a  very  dim  candle,  to  show 
them. 

"  I  knew  you  wanted  to  get  them  for  her,  after  what 
she  said,  Mrs.  March,"  he  laughed,  nervously,  "and 
you  must  let  me  lend  you  the  money." 

"  Why,  of  course  !  "  she  answered,  joyfully  humor 
ing  his  feint.  "  Shall  I  put  my  card  in  for  the  man 
to  send  home  to  her  with  them  ? " 

"  Well — no.  No.  Not  your  card — exactly.  Or, 
yes  !  Yes,  you  must,  I  suppose." 

They  made  the  hushing  street  gay  with  their 
laughter;  the  next  evening  Miss  Triscoe  came  upon 
the  Marches  and  Burnamy  where  they  sat  after  supper 
listening  to  the  concert  at  Pupp's,  and  thanked  Mrs. 
March  for  the  scissors.  Then  she  and  Burnamy  had 
their  laugh  again,  and  Miss  Triscoe  joined  them,  to 
her  father's  frowning  mystification.  He  stared  round 
for  a  table;  they  were  all  taken,  and  he  could  not  re 
fuse  the  interest  Burnamy  made  with  the  waiters  to 
bring  them  one  and  crowd  it  in.  He  had  to  ask  him 
to  sup  with  them,  and  Burnamy  sat  down  and  heard 
the  concert  through  beside  Miss  Triscoe. 

"  What  is  so  tremendously  amusing  in  a  pair  of 
stork-scissors  ? "  March  demanded,  when  his  wife  and 
he  were  alone. 

"  Why,  I  was  wanting  to  tell  you,  dearest,"  she  be- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  211 

gan,  in  a  tone  which  he  felt  to  be  wheedling,  and  she 
told  the  story  of  the  scissors. 

"  Look  here,  my  dear  !  Didn't  you  promise  to  let 
this  love-affair  alone  ? " 

"  That  was  on  the  ship.  And  besides,  what  would 
you  have  done,  I  should  like  to  know  ?  Would  you 
have  refused  to  let  him  buy  them  for  her?"  She 
added,  carelessly,  "  He  wants  us  to  go  to  the  Kurhaus 
ball  with  him." 

"  Oh,  does  he  !  " 

"Yes.  He  says  he  knows  that  she  can  get  her 
father  to  let  her  go  if  we  will  chaperon  them.  And 
.1  promised  that  you  would." 

"That /would?" 

"It  will  do  just  as  well  if  you  go.  And  it  will  be 
very  amusing;  you  can  see  something  of  Carlsbad 
society." 

"  But  I'm  not  going  !  "  he  declared.  "  It  would 
interfere  with  my  cure.  The  sitting  up  late  would  be 
bad  enough,  but  I  should  get  very  hungry,  and  I 
should  eat  potato  salad  and  sausages,  and  drink  beer, 
and  do  all  sorts  of  unwholesome  things." 

"  Nonsense  !  The  refreshments  will  be  kurgemass, 
of  course." 

"  You  can  go  yourself,"  he  said. 

A  ball  is  not  the  same  thing  for  a  woman  after  fifty 
as  it  is  before  twenty,  but  still  it  has  claims  upon  the 
imagination,  and  the  novel  circumstance  of  a  ball  in 
the  Kurhaus  in  Carlsbad  enhanced  these  for  Mrs. 
March.  It  was  the  annual  reunion  which  is  given  by 
municipal  authority  in  the  large  hall  above  the  bath- 


212  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

rooms;  it  is  frequented  with  safety  and  pleasure  by 
curious  strangers,  and  now,  upon  reflection,  it  began 
to  have  for  Mrs.  March  the  charm  of  duty;  she  be 
lieved  that  she  could  finally  have  made  March  go  in 
her  place,  but  she  felt  that  she  ought  really  to  go  in 
his,  and  save  him  from  the  late  hours  and  the  late 
supper. 

"  Very  well,  then,"  she  said  at  last,  "  I  will  go." 
It  appeared  that  any  civil  person  might  go  to  the 
reunion  who  chose  to  pay  two  florins  and  a  half. 
There  must  have  been  some  sort  of  restriction,  and 
the  ladies  of  Burnamy's  party  went  with  a  good  deal 
of  amused  curiosity^  to  see  what  the  distinctions 
were ;  but  they  saw  none  unless  it  was  the  advantages 
which  the  military  had.  The  long  hall  over  the  bath 
rooms  shaped  itself  into  a  space  for  the  dancing  at 
one  end,  and  all  the  rest  of  it  was  filled  with  tables, 
which  at  half  past  eight  were  crowded  with  people, 
eating,  drinking,  and  smoking.  The  military  enjoyed 
the  monopoly  of  a  table  next  the  rail  dividing  the 
dancing  from  the  dining  space.  There  the  tight-laced 
Herr  Hauptmanns  and  Herr  Lieutenants  sat  at  their 
sausage  and  beer  and  cigars  in  the  intervals  of  the 
waltzes,  and  strengthened  themselves  for  a  foray 
among  the  gracious  Fraus  and  Frauleins  on  the 
benches  lining  three  sides  of  the  dancing-space.  From 
the  gallery  above  many  civilian  spectators  looked 
down  upon  the  gayety,  and  the  dress-coats  of  a  few 
citizens  figured  among  the  uniforms. 

As  the  evening  wore  on  some  ladies  of  greater  fash 
ion  found  their  way  to  the  dancing-floor,  and  toward 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  213 

ten  o'clock  it  became  rather  crowded.  A  party  of 
American  girls  showed  their  Paris  dresses  in  the  trans 
atlantic  versions  of  the  waltz.  At  first  they  danced 
with  the  young  men  who  came  with  them ;  but  after 
a  while  they  yielded  to  the  custom  of  the  place,  and 
danced  with  any  of  the  officers  who  asked  them. 

"  I  know  it's  the  custom,"  said  Mrs.  March  to  Miss 
Triscoe,  who  was  at  her  side  in  one  of  the  waltzes  she 
had  decided  to  sit  out,  so  as  not  to  be  dancing  all  the 
time  with  Burnamy,  "  but  I  never  can  like  it  without 
an  introduction." 

"  No,"  said  the  girl,  with  the  air  of  putting  temp 
tation  decidedly  away,  "  I  don't  believe  papa  would, 
either." 

A  young  officer  came  up,  and  drooped  in  mute  sup 
plication  before  her.  She  glanced  at  Mrs.  March, 
who  turned  her  face  away ;  and  she  excused  herself 
with  the  pretence  that  she  had  promised  the  dance, 
and  by  good  fortune,  Burnamy,  who  had  been  un 
scrupulously  waltzing  with  a  lady  he  did  not  know, 
came  up  at  the  moment.  She  rose  and  put  her  hand 
on  his  arm,  and  they  both  bowed  to  the  officer  before 
they  whirled  away.  The  officer  looked  after  them 
with  amiable  admiration;  then  he  turned  to  Mrs. 
March  with  a  light  of  banter  in  his  friendly  eyes,  and 
was  unmistakably  asking  her  to  dance.  She  liked  his 
ironical  daring,  she  liked  it  so  much  that  she  forgot 
her  objection  to  partners  without  introductions;  she 
forgot  her  fifty-odd  years  ;  she  forgot  that  she  was  a 
mother  of  grown  children  and  even  a  mother-in-law  ; 
she  remembered  only  the  step  of  her  out-dated  waltz. 


214  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

It  seemed  to  be  modern  enough  for  the  cheerful 
young  officer,  and  they  were  suddenly  revolving  with 
the  rest.  A  tide  of  long-forgotten  girlhood  welled  up 
in  her  heart,  and  she  laughed  as  she  floated  off  on  it 
past  the  astonished  eyes  of  Miss  Triscoe  and  Burna- 
my.  She  saw  them  falter,  as  if  they  had  lost  their 
step  in  their  astonishment;  then  they  seemed  both  to 
vanish,  and  her  partner  had  released  her,  and  was 
helping  Miss  Triscoe  up  from  the  floor;  Burnamy  was 
brushing  the  dust  from  his  knees,  and  the  citizen  who 
had  bowled  them  over  was  boisterously  apologizing 
and  incessantly  bowing. 

"  Oh,  are  you  hurt?"  Mrs.  March  implored.  "I'm 
sure  you  must  be  killed ;  and  I  did  it !  I  don't  know 
what  I  was  thinking  of  ! " 

The  girl  laughed.     "  I'm  not  hurt  a  bit !  " 

They  had  one  impulse  to  escape  from  the  place, 
and  from  the  sympathy  and  congratulation.  In  the 
dressing-room  she  declared  again  that  she  was  all 
right.  "  How  beautifully  you  waltz,  Mrs.  March  ! " 
she  said,  and  she  laughed  again,  and  would  not  agree 
with  her  that  she  had  been  ridiculous.  "  But  I'm 
glad  those  American  girls  didn't  see  me.  And  I  can't 
be  too  thankful  papa  didn't  come  !  " 

Mrs.  March's  heart  sank  at  the  thought  of  what 
General  Triscoe  would  think  of  her.  "  You  must  tell 
him  I  did  it.  I  can  never  lift  up  my  head  !  " 

"  No,  I  shall  not.  No  one  did  it,"  said  the  girl, 
magnanimously.  She  looked  down  sidelong  at  her 
draperies.  "  I  was  so  afraid  I  had  torn  my  dress !  I 
certainly  heard  something  rip." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  215 

It  was  one  of  the  skirts  of  Burnamy's  coat,  which 
he  had  caught  into  his  hand  and  held  in  place  till  he 
could  escape  to  the  men's  dressing-room,  where  he 
had  it  pinned  up  so  skilfully  that  the  damage  was  not 
suspected  by  the  ladies.  He  had  banged  his  knee 
abominably  too ;  but  they  did  not  suspect  that  either, 
as  he  limped  home  on  the  air  beside  them,  first  to 
Miss  Triscoe's  pension,  and  then  to  Mrs.  March's 
hotel. 

It  was  quite  eleven  o'clock,  which  at  Carlsbad  is  as 
late  as  three  in  the  morning  anywhere  else,  when  she 
let  herself  into  her  room.  She  decided  not  to  tell  her 
husband,  then ;  and  even  at  breakfast,  which  they  had 
at  the  Posthof,  she  had  not  got  to  her  confession, 
though  she  had  told  him  everything  else  about  the 
ball,  when  the  young  officer  with  whom  she  had 
danced  passed  between  the  tables  near  her.  He 
caught  her  eye  and  bowed  with  a  smile  of  so  much 
meaning  that  March  asked,  "  Who's  your  pretty 
young  friend  ? " 

"Oh,  that!'1''  she  answered  carelessly.  "That  was 
one  of  the  officers  at  the  ball,"  and  she  laughed. 

"  You  seem  to  be  in  the  joke,  too,"  he  said.  "  What 
is  it?" 

"Oh,  something.  I'll  tell  you  some  time.  Or 
perhaps  you'll  find  out." 

"  I'm  afraid  you  won't  let  me  wait." 

"  No,  I  won't,"  and  now  she  told  him.  She  had 
expected  teasing,  ridicule,  sarcasm,  anything  but  the 
psychological  interest  mixed  with  a  sort  of  retrospec 
tive  tenderness  which  he  showed.  "  I  wish  I  could 


216  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

have  seen  you ;  I  always  thought  you  danced  well." 
He  added :  "  It  seems  that  you  need  a  chaperon  too." 

The  next  morning,  after  March  and  General  Triscoe 
had  started  off  upon  one  of  the  hill  climbs,  the  young 
people  made  her  go  with  them  for  a  walk  up  the  Tepl, 
as  far  as  the  cafe  of  the  Freundschaftsaal.  In  the 
grounds  an  artist  in  silhouettes  was  cutting  out  the 
likenesses  of  people  who  supposed  themselves  to  have 
profiles,  and  they  begged  Mrs.  March  to  sit  for  hers. 
It  was  so  good  that  she  insisted  on  Miss  Triscoe's 
sitting  in  turn,  and  then  Burnamy.  Then  he  had  the 
inspiration  to  propose  that  they  should  all  three  sit 
together,  and  it  appeared  that  such  a  group  was  within 
the  scope  of  the  silhouettist's  art;  he  posed  them  in 
his  little  bower,  and  while  he  was  mounting  the  pict 
ure  they  took  turns,  at  five  kreutzers  each,  in  listening 
to  American  tunes  played  by  his  Edison  phonograph. 

Mrs.  March  felt  that  all  this  was  weakening  her 
moral  fibre ;  but  she  tried  to  draw  the  line  at  letting 
Burnamy  keep  the  group.  "  Why  not  ?  "  he  pleaded. 

"You  oughtn't  to  ask,"  she  returned.  "You've 
no  business  to  have  Miss  Triscoe's  picture,  if  you 
must  know." 

"  But  you're  there  to  chaperon  us  !  "  he  persisted. 

He  began  to  laugh,  and  they  all  laughed  when  she 
said,  "  You  need  a  chaperon  who  doesn't  lose  her 
head,  in  a  silhouette."  But  it  seemed  useless  to  hold 
out  after  that,  and  she  heard  herself  asking,  "  Shall 
we  let  him  keep  it,  Miss  Triscoe  ?  " 

Burnamy  went  off  to  his  work  with  Stoller,  carrying 
the  silhouette  with  him,  and  she  kept  on  with  Miss 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  217 

Triscoe  to  her  hotel.  In  turning  from  the  gate  after 
she  parted  with  the  girl  she  found  herself  confronted 
with  Mrs/Adding  and  Rose.  The  ladies  exclaimed 
at  each  other  in  an  astonishment  from  which  they  had 
to  recover  before  they  could  begin  to  talk,  but  from 
the  first  moment  Mrs.  March  perceived  that  Mrs.  Add 
ing  had  something  to  say.  The  more  freely  to  say  it 
she  asked  Mrs.  March  into  her  hotel,  which  was  in 
the  same  street  with  the  pension  of  the  Triscoes,  and 
she  let  her  boy  go  off  about  the  exploration  of  Carls 
bad  ;  he  promised  to  be  back  in  an  hour. 

"  Well,  now  what  scrape  are  you  in  ?  "  March  asked 
when  his  wife  came  home,  and  began  to  put  off  her 
things,  with  signs  of  excitement  which  he  could  not 
fail  to  note.  He  was  lying  down  after  a  long  tramp, 
and  he  seemed  very  comfortable. 

His  question  suggested  something  of  anterior  im 
port,  and  she  told  him  about  the  silhouettes,  and  the 
advantage  the  young  people  had  taken  of  their  power 
over  her  through  their  knowledge  of  her  foolish  be 
havior  at  the  ball. 

He  said,  lazily :  "  They  seem  to  be  working  you  for 
all  you're  worth.  Is  that  it  ? " 

"  No ;  there  is  something  worse.  Something's  hap 
pened  which  throws  all  that  quite  in  the  shade.  Mrs. 
Adding  is  here." 

"  Mrs.  Adding  ? "  he  repeated,  with  a  dimness  for 
names  which  she  would  not  allow  was  growing  on  him. 

"  Don't  be  stupid,  dear !  Mrs.  Adding,  who  sat 
opposite  Mr.  Kenby  on  the  Norumbia.  The  mother 
of  the  nice  boy." 


218          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  Oh,  yes  !     Well,  that's  good  !  " 

"  No,  it  isn't !  Don't  say  such  a  thing — till  you 
know ! "  she  cried,  with  a  certain  shrillness  which 
warned  him  of  an  unfathomed  seriousness  in  the  fact. 
He  sat  up  as  if  better  to  confront  the  mystery.  "  I 
have  been  at  her  hotel,  and  she  has  been  telling  me 
that  she's  just  come  from  Berlin,  and  that  Mr.  Ken- 
by's  been  there,  and —  Now  I  won't  have  you  mak 
ing  a  joke  of  it,  or  breaking  out  about  it,  as  if  it  were 
not  a  thing  to  be  looked  for ;  though  of  course  with 
the  others  on  our  hands  you're  not  to  blame  for  not 
thinking  of  it.  But  you  can  see  yourself  that  she's 
young  and  good-looking.  She  did  speak  beautifully 
of  her  son,  and  if  it  were  not  for  him,  I  don't  believe 
she  would  hesitate — " 

"  For  heaven's  sake,  what  are  you  driving  at  ?  " 
March  broke  in,  and  she  answered  him  as  vehemently: 

"  He's  asked  her  to  marry  him  !  " 

"Kenby?     Mrs.  Adding?" 

"Yes!" 

"  Well,  now,  Isabel,  this  won't  do !  They  ought 
to  be  ashamed  of  themselves.  With  that  morbid, 
sensitive  boy  !  It's  shocking — " 

"  Will  you  listen  ?  Or  do  you  want  me  to  stop  ?  " 
He  arrested  himself  at  her  threat,  and  she  resumed, 
after  giving  her  contempt  of  his  turbulence  time  to 
sink  in,  "  She  refused  him,  of  course — " 

"  Oh,  all  right,  then  !  " 

"  You  take  it  in  such  a  way  that  I've  a  great  mind 
not  to  tell  you  anything  more  about  it." 

"I  know  you    have,"  he  said,  stretching  himself 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  219 

out  again ;  "  but  you'll  do  it,  all  the  same.  You'd 
have  been  awfully  disappointed  if  I  had  been  calm 
and  collected." 

"  She  refused  him,"  she  began  again,  "  although 
she  respects  him,  because  she  feels  that  she  ought 
to  devote  herself  to  her  son.  Of  course  she's  very 
young,  still;  she  was  married  when  she  was  only 
nineteen  to  a  man  twice  her  age,  and  she's  not  thirty- 
five  yet.  I  don't  think  she  ever  cared  much  for  her 
husband;  and  she  wants  you  to  find  out  something 
about  him." 

"  I  never  heard  of  him.     I — " 

Mrs.  March  made  a  "  tchck ! "  that  would  have 
recalled  the  most  consequent  of  men  from  the  most 
logical  and  coherent  interpretation  to  the  true  intent 
of  her  words.  He  perceived  his  mistake,  and  said, 
resolutely :  "  Well,  I  won't  do  it.  If  she's  refused 
him,  that's  the  end  of  it;  she  needn't  know  anything 
about  him,  and  she  has  no  right  to." 

"  Now  I  think  differently,"  said  Mrs.  March,  with 
an  inductive  air.  "  Of  course  she  has  to  know  about 
him,  now."  She  stopped,  and  March  turned  his  head 
and  looked  expectantly  at  her.  "  He  said  he  would 
not  consider  her  answer  final,  but  would  hope  to  see 
her  again  and —  She's  afraid  he  may  follow  her — 
What  are  you  looking  at  me  so  for  ? " 

"  Is  he  coming  here  ? " 

"  Am  I  to  blame  if  he  is  ?  He  said  he  was  going 
to  write  to  her." 

March  burst  into  a  laugh.  "Well,  they  haven't 
been  beating  about  the  bush !  When  I  think  how 


220          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

Miss  Triscoe  has  been  pursuing  Burnamy  from  the 
first  moment  she  set  eyes  on  him,  with  the  settled 
belief  that  she  was  running  from  him,  and  he  imag 
ines  that  he  has  been  boldly  following  her,  without 
the  least  hope  from  her,  I  can't  help  admiring  the 
simple  directness  of  these  elders." 

"  And  if  Kenby  wants  to  talk  with  you,  what  will 
you  say  ? "  she  cut  in  eagerly. 

"  I'll  say  I  don't  like  the  subject.  What  am  I  in 
Carlsbad  for  ?  I  came  for  the  cure,  and  I'm  spending 
time  and  money  on  it.  I  might  as  well  go  and  take 
my  three  cups  of  Felsenquelle  on  a  full  stomach  as  to 
listen  to  Kenby." 

"  I  know  it's  bad  for  you,  and  I  wish  we  had  never 
seen  those  people,"  said  Mrs.  March.  "  I  don't  be 
lieve  he'll  want  to  talk  with  you  ;  but  if — " 

"  Is  Mrs.  Adding  in  this  hotel  ?  I'm  not  going  to 
have  them  round  in  my  bread-trough ! " 

"  She  isn't.     She's  at  one  of  the  hotels  on  the  hill." 

"  Very  well,  let  her  stay  there,  then.  They  can 
manage  their  love-affairs  in  their  own  way.  The  only 
one  I  care  the  least  for  is  the  boy." 

"  Yes,  it  is  forlorn  for  him.  But  he  likes  Mr. 
Kenby,  and —  No,  it's  horrid,  and  you  can't  make  it 
anything  else ! " 

"  Well,  I'm  not  trying  to."  He  turned  his  face 
away.  "  I  must  get  my  nap,  now."  After  she  thought 
he  must  have  fallen  asleep,  he  said,  "  The  first  thing 
you  know,  those  old  Eltwins  will  be  coming  round 
and  telling  us  that  they're  going  to  get  divorced." 
Then  he  really  slept. 


XXXII. 

THE  mid-day  dinner  at  Pupp's  was  the  time  to  see 
the  Carlsbad  world,  and  the  Marches  had  the  habit 
of  sitting  long  at  table  to  watch  it. 

There  was  one  family  in  whom  they  fancied  a  sort 
of  literary  quality,  as  if  they  had  come  out  of  some 
pleasant  German  story,  but  they  never  knew  anything 
about  them.  The  father  by  his  dress  must  have  been 
a  Protestant  clergyman ;  the  mother  had  been  a  beauty 
and  was  still  very  handsome ;  the  daughter  was  good- 
looking,  and  of  a  good-breeding  which  was  both  girl 
ish  and  ladylike.  They  commended  themselves  by 
always  taking  the  table  d'hote  dinner,  as  the  Marches 
did,  and  eating  through  from  the  soup  and  the  rank 
fresh-water  fish  to  the  sweet,  upon  the  same  principle : 
the  nusband  ate  all  the  compote  and  gave  the  others 
his  dessert,  which  was  not  good  for  him.  A  young 
girl  of  a  different  fascination  remained  as  much  a  mys 
tery.  She  was  small  and  of  an  extreme  tenuity,  which 
became  more  bewildering  as  she  advanced  through 
her  meal,  especially  at  supper,  which  she  made  of  a 
long  cucumber  pickle,  a  Frankfort  sausage  of  twice 
the  pickle's  length,  and  a  towering  goblet  of  beer ;  in 


222  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

her  lap  she  held  a  shivering  little  hound  ;  she  was  in 
the  decorous  keeping  of  an  elderly  maid,  and  had 
every  effect  of  being  a  gracious  Fraulein.  A  curious 
contrast  to  her  Teutonic  voracity  was  the  temperance 
of  a  young  Latin  swell,  imaginably  from  Trieste,  who 
sat  long  over  his  small  coffee  and  cigarette,  and  tran 
quilly  mused  upon  the  pages  of  an  Italian  newspaper. 
At  another  table  there  was  a  very  noisy  lady,  short  and 
fat,  in  flowing  draperies  of  white,  who  commanded  a 
sallow  family  of  South-Americans,  and  loudly  haran 
gued  them  in  South-American  Spanish;  she  flared 
out  in  a  picture  which  nowhere  lacked  strong  effects ; 
and  in  her  background  lurked  a  mysterious  black  face 
and  figure,  ironically  subservient  to  the  old  man,  the 
mild  boy,  and  the  pretty  young  girl  in  the  middle  dis 
tance  of  the  family  group. 

Amidst  the  shows  of  a  hardened  worldliness  there 
were  touching  glimpses  of  domesticity  and  heart:  a 
young  bride  fed  her  husband  soup  from  her  own  plate 
with  her  spoon,  unabashed  by  the  publicity  ;  a  mother 
and  her  two  pretty  daughters  hung  about  a  handsome 
officer,  who  must  have  been  newly  betrothed  to  one  of 
the  girls ;  and  the  whole  family  showed  a  helpless 
fondness  for  him,  which  he  did  not  despise,  though  he 
held  it  in  check ;  the  girls  dressed  alike,  and  seemed 
to  have  for  their  whole  change  of  costume  a  difference 
from  time  to  time  in  the  color  of  their  sleeves.  The 
Marches  believed  they  had  seen  the  growth  of  the 
romance  which  had  eventuated  so  happily ;  and  they 
saw  other  romances  which  did  not  in  any  wise  event 
uate.  Carlsbad  was  evidently  one  of  the  great  mar- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  223 

riage  marts  of  middle  Europe,  where  mothers  brought 
their  daughters  to  be  admired,  and  everywhere  the 
flower  of  life  was  blooming  for  the  hand  of  love.  It 
blew  by  on  all  the  promenades  in  dresses  and  hats  as 
pretty  as  they  could  be  bought  or  imagined ;  but  it 
was  chiefly  at  Pupp's  that  it  flourished.  For  the 
most  part  it  seemed  to  flourish  in  vain,  and  to  be  des 
tined  to  be  put  by  for  another  season  to  dream,  bulb- 
like,  of  the  coming  summer  in  the  quiet  of  Moldavian 
and  Transylvanian  homes. 

Perhaps  it  was  oftener  of  fortunate  effect  than  the 
spectators  knew ;  but  for  their  own  pleasure  they 
would  not  have  had  their  pang  for  it  less;  and  March 
objected  to  having  a  more  explicit  demand  upon  his 
sympathy.  "  We  could  have  managed,"  he  said,  at 
the  close  of  their  dinner,  as  he  looked  compassionately 
round  upon  the  parterre  of  young  girls,  "  we  could 
have  managed  with  Burnamy  and  Miss  Triscoe ;  but 
to  have  Mrs.  Adding  and  Kenby  launched  upon  us  is 
too  much.  Of  course  I  like  Kenby,  and  if  the  widow 
alone  were  concerned  I  would  give  him  my  blessing : 
a  wife  more  or  a  widow  less  is  not  going  to  disturb 
the  equilibrium  of  the  universe ;  but — "  He  stopped, 
and  then  he  went  on  :  "  Men  and  women  are  well 
enough.  They  complement  each  other  very  agreeably, 
and  they  have  very  good  times  together.  But  why 
should  they  get  in  love  ?  It  is  sure  to  make  them 
uncomfortable  to  themselves  and  annoying  to  others." 
He  broke  off,  and  stared  about  him.  "My  dear,  this 
is  really  charming — almost  as  charming  as  the  Post- 
hof."  The  crowd  spread  from  the  open  vestibule  of 


224  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

the  hotel  and  the  shelter  of  its  branching  pavilion 
roofs  until  it  was  dimmed  in  the  obscurity  of  the  low 
grove  across  the  way  in  an  ultimate  depth  where  the 
musicians  were  giving  the  afternoon  concert.  Be 
tween  its  two  stationary  divisions  moved  a  current  of 
promenaders,  with  some  such  effect  as  if  the  colors  of 
a  lovely  garden  should  have  liquefied  and  flowed  in 
mingled  rose  and  lilac,  pink  and  yellow,  and  white 
and  orange,  and  all  the  middle  tints  of  modern  milli 
nery.  Above  on  one  side  were  the  agreeable  bulks  of 
architecture,  in  the  buff  and  gray  of  Carlsbad;  and 
far  beyond  on  the  other  were  the  upland  slopes,  with 
villas  and  long  curves  of  country  roads,  belted  in  with 
miles  of  wall.  "  It  would  be  about  as  offensive  to 
have  a  love-interest  that  one  personally  knew  about 
intruded  here,"  he  said,  "  as  to  have  a  two-spanner 
carriage  driven  through  this  crowd.  It  ought  to  be 
forbidden  by  the  municipality." 

Mrs.  March  listened  with  her  ears,  but  not  with  her 
eyes,  and  she  answered :  "  See  that  handsome  young 
Greek  priest !  Isn't  he  an  archimandrite  ?  The  por- 
tier  said  he  was." 

"  Then  let  him  pass  for  an  archimandrite.  Now," 
he  recurred  to  his  grievance  again,  dreamily,  "  I  have 
got  to  take  Papa  Triscoe  in  hand,  and  poison  his  mind 
against  Burnamy,  and  I  shall  have  to  instil  a  few 
drops  of  venomous  suspicion  against  Kenby  into  the 
heart  of  poor  little  Rose  Adding.  Oh,"  he  broke 
out,  "  they  will  spoil  everything.  They'll  be  with  us 
morning,  noon,  and  night,"  and  he  went  on  to  work 
the  joke  of  repining  at  his  lot.  The  worst  thing,  he 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  225 

said,  would  be  the  lovers'  pretence  of  being  interested 
in  something  besides  themselves,  which  they  were  no 
more,  capable  of  than  so  many  lunatics.  How  could 
they  care  for  pretty  girls  playing  tennis  on  an  upland 
level,  in  the  waning  afternoon  ?  Or  a  cartful  of  peas 
ant  women  stopping  to  cross  themselves  at  a  way-side 
shrine  ?  Or  a  whistling  boy  with  holes  in  his  trousers 
pausing  from  some  wayside  raspberries  to  touch  his 
hat  and  say  good-morning?  Or  those  preposterous 
maidens  sprinkling  linen  on  the  grass  from  watering- 
pots  while  the  skies  were  full  of  rain  ?  Or  that  black 
smith  shop  where  Peter  the  Great  made  a  horseshoe  ? 
Or  the  monument  of  the  young  warrior-poet  Koerner, 
with  a  gentle-looking  girl  and  her  mother  reading  and 
knitting  on  a  bench  before  it  ?  These  simple  pleasures 
sufficed  them,  but  what  could  lovers  really  care  for 
them  ?  A  peasant  girl  flung  down  on  the  grassy 
road-side,  fast  asleep,  while  her  yoke-fellow,  the  gray 
old  dog,  lay  in  his  harness  near  her  with  one  drowsy 
eye  half  opfcn  for  her  and  the  other  for  the  contents 
of  their  cart ;  a  boy  chasing  a  red  squirrel  in  the  old 
upper  town  beyond  the  Tepl,  and  enlisting  the  inter 
est  of  all  the  neighbors ;  the  negro  door-keeper  at  the 
Golden  Shield  who  ought  to  have  spoken  our  South 
ern  English,  but  who  spoke  bad  German  and  was  from 
Cairo ;  the  sweet  afternoon  stillness  in  the  woods ;  the 
good  German  mothers  crocheting  at  the  Posthof  con 
certs  :  Burnamy  as  a  young  poet  might  have  felt  the 
precious  quality  of  these  things,  if  his  senses  had  not 
been  holden  by  Miss  Triscoe ;  and  she  might  have  felt 
it  if  only  he  had  done  so.  But  as  it  was  it  would  be 
O 


226  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

lost  upon  their  preoccupation ;  with  Mrs.  Adding  and 
Kenby  it  would  be  hopeless. 

A  day  or  two  after  Mrs.  March  had  met  Mrs.  Add 
ing,  she  went  with  her  husband  to  revere  a  certain 
magnificent  blackamoor  whom  he  had  discovered  at 

o 

the  entrance  of  one  of  the  aristocratic  hotels  on  the 
Schlossberg,  where  he  performed  the  function  of  a 
kind  of  caryatid,  and  looked,  in  the  black  of  his  skin 
and  the  white  of  his  flowing  costume,  like  a  colossal 
figure  carved  in  ebony  and  ivory.  They  took  a  round 
about  way  through  a  street  entirely  of  villa-pensions ; 
every  house  in  Carlsbad  but  one  is  a  pension  if  it  is 
not  a  hotel ;  but  these  were  of  a  sort  of  sentimental 
prettiness,  with  each  a  little  garden  before  it,  and  a 
bower  with  an  iron  table  in  it  for  breakfasting  and 
supping  out-doors;  and  he  said  that  they  would  be 
the  very  places  for  bridal  couples  who  wished  to  spend 
the  honey-moon  in  getting  well  of  the  wedding  sur 
feit.  She  denounced  him  for  saying  such  a  thing  as 
that,  and  for  his  inconsistency  in  complaining  of  lov 
ers  while  he  was  willing  to  think  of  young  married 
people.  He  contended  that  there  was  a  great  differ 
ence  in  the  sort  of  demand  that  young  married  people 
made  upon  the  interest  of  witnesses,  and  that  they 
were  at  least  on  their  way  to  sanity ;  and  before  they 
agreed,  they  had  come  to  the  hotel  with  the  blacka 
moor  at  the  door.  While  they  lingered,  sharing  the 
splendid  creature's  hospitable  pleasure  in  the  spectacle 
he  formed,  they  were  aware  of  a  carriage  with  liveried 
coachman  and  footman  at  the  steps  of  the  hotel ;  the 
liveries  were  very  quiet  and  distinguished,  and  they 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  227 

learned  that  the  equipage  was  waiting  for  the  Prince 
of  Coburg,  or  the  Princess  of  Montenegro,  or  Prince 
Henry  of  Prussia;  there  were  differing  opinions 
among  the  twenty  or  thirty  bystanders.  Mrs.  March 
said  she  did  not  care  which  it  was ;  and  she  was 
patient  of  the  denouement,  which  began  to  postpone 
itself  with  delicate  delays.  After  repeated  agitations 
at  the  door  among  portiers,  proprietors,  and  waiters, 
whose  fluttered  spirits  imparted  their  thrill  to  the 
spectators,  while  the  coachman  and  footman  remained 
sculpturesquely  impassive  in  their  places,  the  carriage 
moved  aside  and  let  an  energetic  American  lady  and 
her  family  drive  up  to  the  steps.  The  hotel  people 
paid  her  a  tempered  devotion,  but  she  marred  the 
effect  by  rushing  out  and  sitting  on  a  balcony  to  wait 
for  the  delaying  royalties.  There  began  to  be  more 
promises  of  their  early  appearance  ;  a  footman  got 
down  and  placed  himself  at  the  carriage  door;  the 
coachman  stiffened  himself  on  his  box ;  then  he  re 
laxed  ;  the  footman  drooped,  and  even  wandered  aside. 
There  came  a  moment  when  at  some  signal  the  carri 
age  drove  quite  away  from  the  portal  and  waited  near 
the  gate  of  the  stable-yard  ;  it  drove  back,  and  the 
spectators  redoubled  their  attention.  Nothing  hap 
pened,  and  some  of  them  dropped  off.  At  last  an 
indescribable  significance  expressed  itself  in  the  offi 
cial  group  at  the  door ;  a  man  in  a  high  hat  and  dress- 
coat  hurried  out;  a  footman  hurried  to  meet  him; 
they  spoke  inaudibly  together.  The  footman  mounted 
to  his  place ;  the  coachman  gathered  up  his  reins  and 
drove  rapidly  out  of  the  hotel-yard,  down  the  street, 


228  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

round  the  corner,  out  of  sight.  The  man  in  the  tall 
hat  and  dress-coat  went  in ;  the  official  group  at  the 
threshold  dissolved  ;  the  statue  in  ivory  and  ebony 
resumed  its  place  ;  evidently  the  Iloheit  of  Coburg, 
or  Montenegro,  or  Prussia,  was  not  going  to  take  the 
air. 

"  My  dear,  this  is  humiliating." 

"  Not  at  all !  I  wouldn't  have  missed  it  for  any 
thing.  Think  how  near  we  came  to  seeing  them !  " 

"  I  shouldn't  feel  so  shabby  if  we  had  seen  them. 
But  to  hang  round  here  in  this  plebeian  abeyance,  and 
then  to  be  defeated  and  defrauded  at  last !  I  wonder 
how  long  this  sort  of  thing  is  going  on  ? " 

"What  thing?" 

"This  base  subjection  of  the  imagination  to  the 
Tom  Foolery  of  the  Ages." 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  mean.  I'm  sure  it's  very 
natural  to  want  to  see  a  Prince." 

"  Only  too  natural.  It's  so  deeply  founded  in  nat 
ure  that  after  denying  royalty  by  word  and  deed  for 
a  hundred  years,  we  Americans  are  hungrier  for  it 
than  anybody  else.  Perhaps  we  may  come  back  to 
it!" 

"  Nonsense  ! '' 

They  looked  up  at  the  Austrian  flag  on  the  tower 
of  the  hotel,  languidly  curling  and  uncurling  in  the 
bland  evening  air,  as  it  had  over  a  thousand  years  of 
stupid  and  selfish  monarchy,  while  all  the  generous 
republics  of  the  Middle  Ages  had  perished,  and  the 
commonwealths  of  later  times  had  passed  like  fever 
dreams.  That  dull,  inglorious  empire  had  antedated 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  229 

or  outlived  Venice  and  Genoa,  Florence  and  Siena, 
the  England  of  Cromwell,  the  Holland  of  the  Stadt- 
holders,  and  the  France  of  many  revolutions,  and  all 
the  fleeting  democracies  which  sprang  from  these. 

March  began  to  ask  himself  how  his  curiosity  dif 
fered  from  that  of  the  Europeans  about  him ;  then  he 
became  aware  that  these  had  detached  themselves,  and 
left  him  exposed  to  the  presence  of  a  fellow  country 
man.  It  was  Otterson,  with  Mrs.  Otterson  ;  he  turned 
upon  March  with  hilarious  recognition.  "  Hello ! 
Most  of  the  Americans  in  Carlsbad  seem  to  be  hang 
ing  round  here  for  a  sight  of  these  kings.  Well,  we 
don't  have  a  great  many  of  'em,  and  it's  natural  we 
shouldn't  want  to  miss  any.  But  now,  you  Eastern 
fellows,  you  go  to  Europe  every  summer,  and  yet  you 
don't  seem  to  get  enough  of  'em.  Think  it's  human 
nature,  or  did  it  get  so  ground  into  us  in  the  old 
times  that  we  can't  get  it  out,  no  difference  what  we 
say  ? " 

"  That's  very  much  what  I've  been  asking  myself," 
said  March.  "  Perhaps  it's  any  kind  of  show.  We'd 
wait  nearly  as  long  for  the  President  to  come  out, 
wouldn't  we?" 

"  I  reckon  we  would.  But  we  wouldn't  for  his 
nephew,  or  his  second  cousin." 

"  Well,  they  wouldn't  be  in  the  way  of  the  succes 
sion." 

"I  guess  you're  right."  The  lowan  seemed  better 
satisfied  with  March's  philosophy  than  March  felt 
himself,  and  he  could  not  forbear  adding: 

"  But  I  don't  deny  that  we  should  wait   for  the 


230          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

President  because  lie's  a  kind  of  king  too.  I  don't 
know  that  we  shall  ever  get  over  wanting  to  see  kings 
of  some  kind.  Or  at  least  my  wife  won't.  May  I 
present  you  to  Mrs.  March  ? " 

"  Happy  to  meet  you,  Mrs.  March,"  said  the  lowan. 
"  Introduce  you  to  Mrs.  Otterson.  Pm  the  fool  in 
my  family,  and  I  know  just  how  you  feel  about  a 
chance  like  this.  I  don't  mean  that  you're — " 

They  all  laughed  at  the  hopeless  case,  and  Mrs. 
March  said,  with  one  of  her  unexpected  likings :  "  I 
understand,  Mr.  Otterson.  And  I  would  rather  be 
our  kind  of  fool  than  the  kind  that  pretends  not  to 
care  for  the  sight  of  a  king." 

"  Like  you  and  me,  Mrs.  Otterson,"  said  March. 

"  Indeed,  indeed,"  said  the  lady,  "  I'd  like  to  see  a 
king  too,  if  it  didn't  take  all  night.  Good-evening," 
she  said,  turning  her  husband  about  with  her,  as  if 
she  suspected  a  purpose  of  patronage  in  Mrs.  March, 
and  was  not  going  to  have  it. 

Otterson  looked  over  his  shoulder  to  explain,  des 
pairingly  :  "  The  trouble  with  me  is  that  when  I  do 
get  a  chance  to  talk  English,  there's  such  a  flow  of 
language  it  carries  me  away,  and  I  don't  know  just 
where  I'm  landing." 


XXXIII. 

THERE  were  several  kings  and  their  kindred  at 
Carlsbad  that  summer.  One  day  the  Duchess  of  Or 
leans  drove  over  from  Marienbad,  attended  by  the 
Duke  on  his  bicycle.  After  luncheon,  they  reap 
peared  for  a  moment  before  mounting  to  her  carriage 
with  their  secretaries:  two  young  French  gentlemen 
whose  dress  and  bearing  better  satisfied  Mrs.  March's 
exacting  passion  for  an  aristocratic  air  in  their  order. 
The  Duke  was  fat  and  fair,  as  a  Bourbon  should  be, 
and  the  Duchess  fatter,  though  not  so  fair,  as  became 
a  Hapsburg,  but  they  were  both  more  plebeian-look 
ing  than  their  retainers,  who  were  slender  as  well  as 
young,  and  as  perfectly  appointed  as  English  tailors 
could  imagine  them. 

"  It  wouldn't  do  for  the  very  highest  sort  of  High- 
hotes,"  March  declared,  "  to  look  their  own  conse 
quence  personally ;  they  have  to  leave  that,  like 
everything  else,  to  their  inferiors." 

By  a  happy  heterophemy  of  Mrs.  March's  the  Ger 
man  Hoheit  had  now  become  Highhote,  which  was 
so  much  more  descriptive  that  they  had  permanently 
adopted  it,  and  found  comfort  to  their  republican 


232  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

pride  in  the  mockery  which  it  poured  upon  the  feudal 
structure  of  society.  They  applied  it  with  a  certain 
compunction,  however,  to  the  King  of  Servia,  who 
came  a  few  days  after  the  Duke  and  Duchess :  he 
was  such  a  young  King,  and  of  such  a  little  country. 
They  watched  for  him  from  the  windows  of  the  read 
ing-room,  while  the  crowd  outside  stood  six  deep  on 
the  three  sides  of  the  square  before  the  hotel,  and  the 
two  plain  public  carriages  which  brought  the  King 
and  his  suite  drew  tamely  up  at  the  portal,  where  the 
proprietor  and  some  civic  dignitaries  received  him. 
His  moderated  approach,  so  little  like  that  of  royalty 
on  the  stage,  to  which  Americans  are  used,  allowed 
Mrs.  March  to  make  sure  of  the  pale,  slight,  insignifi 
cant,  amiable-looking  youth  in  spectacles  as  the  sov 
ereign  she  was  ambuscading.  Then  no  appeal  to  her 
principles  could  keep  her  from  peeping  through  the 
reading-room  door  into  the  rotunda,  where  the  King 
graciously  but  speedily  dismissed  the  civic  gentlemen 
and  the  proprietor,  and  vanished  into  the  elevator. 
She  was  destined  to  see  him  so  often  afterwards  that 
she  scarcely  took  the  trouble  to  time  her  dining  and 
supping  by  that  of  the  simple  potentate,  who  had  his 
meals  in  one  of  the  public  rooms,  with  three  gentle 
men  of  his  suite,  in  sack-coats  like  himself,  after  the 
informal  manner  of  the  place. 

Still  another  potentate,  who  happened  that  summer 
to  be  sojourning  abroad,  in  the  interval  of  a  success 
ful  rebellion,  was  at  the  opera  one  night  with  some 
of  his  faithful  followers.  Burnamy  had  offered  Mrs. 
March,  who  supposed  that  he  merely  wanted  her  and 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  233 

her  husband  with  him,  places  in  a  box ;  but  after  she 
eagerly  accepted,  it  seemed  that  he  wished  her  to  ad 
vise  him  whether  it  would  do  to  ask  Miss  Triscoe  and 
her  father  to  join  them.  "  Why  not  ? "  she  returned, 
with  an  arching  of  the  eyebrows. 

"Why,"  he  said,  "perhaps  I  had  better  make  a 
clean  breast  of  it." 

"  Perhaps  you  had,"  she  said,  and  they  both 
laughed,  though  he  laughed  with  a  knot  between  his 
eyes. 

"  The  fact  is,  you  know,  this  isn't  my  treat,  exactly. 
It's  Mr.  Stoller's."     At  the  surprise  in  her  face  he 
hurried  on.     "  He's  got  back  his  first  letter  in  the 
paper,  and   he's  so  much  pleased  with   the  way  he 
reads  in  print,  that  he  wants  to  celebrate." 
"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  March,  non-comrnittally. 
Burnamy  laughed  again.     "But  he's  bashful,  and 
he  isn't  sure  that  you  would  all  take  it  in  the  right 
way.       He  wants  you  as  friends  of  mine;    and    he 
hasn't  quite  the  courage  to  ask  you  himself." 

This  seemed  to  Mrs.  March  so  far  from  bad  that 
she  said :  "  That's  very  nice  of  him.  Then  he's  satis 
fied  with — with  your  help  ?  I'm  glad  of  that." 

"Thank  you.  He's  met  the  Triscoes,  and  he 
thought  it  would  be  pleasant  to  you  if  they  went, 
too." 

"Oh,  certainly." 

"  He  thought,"  Burnamy  went  on,  with  the  air  of 
feeling  his  way,  "  that  we  might  all  go  to  the  opera, 
and  then — then  go  for  a  little  supper  afterwards  at 
Schwarzkopf's." 


234  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

He  named  the  only  place  in  Carlsbad  where  you 
can  sup  so  late  as  ten  o'clock ;  as  the  opera  begins  at 
six,  and  is  over  at  half  past  eight,  none  but  the  wild 
est  roisterers  frequent  the  place. 

"  Oh  !  "  said  Mrs.  March.  "  I  don't  know  how  a 
late  supper  would  agree  with  my  husband's  cure.  I 
should  have  to  ask  him." 

"  We  could  make  it  very  hygienic,"  Burnamy  ex 
plained. 

In  repeating  his  invitation  she  blamed  Burnamy's 
uncandor  so  much  that  March  took  his  part,  as  per 
haps  she  intended,  and  said,  "  Oh,  nonsense,"  and 
that  he  should  like  to  go  in  for  the  whole  thing ;  and 
General  Triscoe  accepted  as  promptly  for  himself 
and  his  daughter.  That  made  six  people,  Burnamy 
counted  up,  and  he  feigned  a  decent  regret  that  there 
was  not  room  for  Mrs.  Adding  and  her  son ;  he  would 
have  liked  to  ask  them. 

Mrs.  March  did  not  enjoy  it  so  much  as  coming 
with  her  husband  alone,  when  they  took  two  florin 
seats  in  the  orchestra  for  the  comedy.  The  comedy 
always  began  half  an  hour  earlier  than  the  opera,  and 
they  had  a  five-o'clock  supper  at  the  Theatre-Caf6 
before  they  went,  and  they  got  to  sleep  by  nine 
o'clock;  now  they  would  be  up  till  half  past  ten  at 
least,  and  that  orgy  at  Schwarzkopf's  might  not  be  at 
all  good  for  him.  But  still  she  liked  being  there ; 
and  Miss  Triscoe  made  her  take  the  best  seat ;  Bur 
namy  and  Stoller  made  the  older  men  take  the  other 
seats  beside  the  ladies,  while  they  sat  behind,  or  stood 
up,  when  they  wished  to  see,  as  people  do  in  the  back 


THEIR    SILVER,    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  235 

of  a  box.  Stoller  was  not  much  at  ease  in  evening 
dress,  but  he  bore  himself  with  a  dignity  which  was 
not  perhaps  so  gloomy  as  it  looked;  Mrs.  March 
thought  him  handsome  in  his  way,  and  required  Miss 
Triscoe  to  admire  him.  As  for  Burnamy's  beauty  it 
was  not  necessary  to  insist  upon  that ;  he  had  the  dis 
tinction  of  slender  youth ;  and  she  liked  to  think  that 
no  Highhote  there  was  of  a  more  patrician  presence 
than  this  yet  imprinted  contributor  to  Every  Other 
Week.  He  and  Stoller  seemed  on  perfect  terms;  or 
else  in  his  joy  he  was  able  to  hide  the  uneasiness 
which  she  had  fancied  in  him  from  the  first  time  she 
saw  them  together,  and  which  had  never  been  quite 
absent  from  his  manner  in  Stoller's  presence.  Her 
husband  always  denied  that  it  existed,  or  if  it  did  that 
it  was  anything  but  Burnamy's  effort  to  get  on  com 
mon  ground  with  an  inferior  whom  fortune  had  put 
over  him. 

The  young  fellow  talked  with  Stoller,  and  tried  to 
bring  him  into  the  range  of  the  general  conversation. 
He  leaned  over  the  ladies,  from  time  to  time,  and 
pointed  out  the  notables  whom  he  saw  in  the  house ; 
she  was  glad,  for  his  sake,  that  he  did  not  lean  less 
over  her  than  over  Miss  Triscoe.  He  explained  cer 
tain  military  figures  in  the  boxes  opposite,  and  certain 
ladies  of  rank  who  did  not  look  their  rank ;  Miss  Tris 
coe,  to  Mrs.  March's  thinking,  looked  their  united 
ranks,  and  more  ;  her  dress  was  very  simple,  but  of  a 
touch  which  saved  it  from  being  insipidly  girlish  ;  her 
beauty  was  dazzling. 

"  Do  you  see  that  old  fellow  in  the  corner  chair 


236  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

just  behind  the  orchestra  ?  "  asked  Burnamy.  "  He's 
ninety -six  years  old,  and  he  conies  to  the  theatre  every 
night,  and  falls  asleep  as  soon  as  the  curtain  rises, 
and  sleeps  through  till  the  end  of  the  act." 

"  How  dear  ! "  said  the  girl,  leaning  forward  to  fix 
the  nonagenarian  with  her  glasses,  while  many  other 
glasses  converged  upon  her.  "  Oh,  wouldn't  you  like 
to  know  him,  Mr.  March  ?  " 

"  I  should  consider  it  a  liberal  education.  They  have 
brought  these  things  to  a  perfect  system  in  Europe. 
There  is  nothing  to  make  life  pass  smoothly  like  in 
flexible  constancy  to  an  entirely  simple  custom.  My 
dear,"  he  added  to  his  wife,  "  I  wish  we'd  seen  this 
sage  before.  He'd  have  helped  us  through  a  good 
many  hours  of  unintelligible  comedy.  I'm  always 
coming  as  Burnamy's  guest,  after  this." 

The  young  fellow  swelled  with  pleasure  in  his  tri 
umph,  and  casting  an  eye  about  the  theatre  to  cap  it, 
he  caught  sight  of  that  other  potentate,  lie  whis 
pered  joyfully,  "Ah!  We've  got  two  kings  here 
to-night,"  and  he  indicated  in  a  box  of  their  tier  just 
across  from  that  where  the  King  of  Servia  sat,  the 
well-known  face  of  the  King  of  New  York. 

"He  isn't  bad-looking,"  said  March,  handing  his 
glass  to  General  Triscoe.  "  I've  not  seen  many  kings 
in  exile  ;  a  matter  of  a  few  Carlist  princes  and  ex-sov 
ereign  dukes,  and  the  good  Henry  V.  of  France,  once, 
when  I  was  staying  a  month  in  Venice ;  but  I  don't 
think  they  any  of  them  looked  the  part  better.  I 
suppose  he  has  his  dream  of  recurring  power  like  the 
rest." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  237 

"  Dream  !  "  said  General  Triscoe  with  the  glass  at 
his  eyes.  "  He's  dead  sure  of  it." 

"  Oh,  you  don't  really  mean  that !  " 

"  I  don't  know  why  I  should  have  changed  my 
mind." 

"  Then  it's  as  if  we  were  in  the  presence  of  Charles 
II.  just  before  he  was  called  back  to  England,  or  Na 
poleon  in  the  last  moments  of  Elba.  It's  better  than 
that.  The  thing  is  almost  unique  ;  it's  a  new  situation 
in  history.  Here's  a  sovereign  who  has  no  recognized 
function,  no  legal  status,  no  objective  existence.  He 
has  no  sort  of  public  being,  except  in  the  affection  of 
his  subjects.  It  took  an  upheaval  little  short  of  an 
earthquake  to  unseat  him.  His  rule,  as  we  under 
stand  it,  was  bad  for  all  classes;  the  poor  suffered 
more  than  the  rich ;  the  people  have  now  had  three 
years  of  self-government ;  and  yet  this  wonderful  man 
has  such  a  hold  upon  the  masses  that  he  is  going 
home  to  win  the  cause  of  oppression  at  the  head  of 
the  oppressed.  When  he's  in  power  again,  he  will 
be  as  subjective  as  ever,  with  the  power  of  civic  life 
and  death,  and  an  idolatrous  following  perfectly  ruth 
less  in  the  execution  of  his  will." 

"  We've  only  begun,"  said  the  general.  "  This 
kind  of  king  is  municipal,  now  ;  but  he's  going  to  be 
national.  And  then,  good-by,  Republic  !  " 

"  The  only  thing  like  it,"  March  resumed,  too  in 
credulous  of  the  evil  future  to  deny  himself  the  aes 
thetic  pleasure  of  the  parallel,  "  is  the  rise  of  the 
Medici  in  Florence,  but  even  the  Medici  were  not 
mere  manipulators  of  pulls ;  they  had  some  sort  of 


238          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  « 

public  office,  with  some  sort  of  legislated  tenure  of  it. 
The  King  of  New  York  is  sovereign  by  force  of  will 
alone,  and  he  will  reign  in  the  voluntary  submission 
of  the  majority.  Is  our  national  dictator  to  be  of  the 
same  nature  and  quality  ? " 

"  It  would  be  the  scientific  evolution,  wouldn't  it  ? " 

The  ladies  listened  with  the  perfunctory  attention 
which  women  pay  to  any  sort  of  inquiry  which  is  not 
personal.  Stoller  had  scarcely  spoken  yet;  he  now 
startled  them  all  by  demanding,  with  a  sort  of  vindic 
tive  force,  "Why  shouldn't  he  have  the  power,  if 
they're  willing  to  let  him  ? " 

"  Yes,"  said  General  Triscoe,  with  a  tilt  of  his  head 
towards  March.  "  That's  what  we  must  ask  ourselves 
more  and  more." 

March  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  and  looked  up  over 
his  shoulder  at  Stoller.  "  Well,  I  don't  know.  Do 
you  think  it's  quite  right  for  a  man  to  use  an  unjust 
power,  even  if  others  are  willing  that  he  should  ? " 

Stoller  stopped  with  an  air  of  bewilderment  as  if 
surprised  on  the  point  of  saying  that  he  thought  just 
this.  He  asked  instead,  "  What's  wrong  about  it  ?  " 

"  Well,  that's  one  of  those  things  that  have  to  be 
felt,  I  suppose.  But  if  a  man  came  to  you,  and  offer 
ed  to  be  your  slave  for  a  certain  consideration — say  a 
comfortable  house,  and  a  steady  job,  that  wasn't  too 
hard — should  you  feel  it  morally  right  to  accept  the 
offer  ?  I  don't  say  think  it  right,  for  there  might  be 
a  kind  of  logic  for  it." 

Stoller  seemed  about  to  answer ;  he  hesitated ;  and 
before  he  had  made  any  response,  the  curtain  rose. 


XXXIV. 

THERE  are  few  prettier  things  than  Carlsbad  by 
night  from  one  of  the  many  bridges  which  span  the 
Tepl  in  its  course  through  the  town.  If  it  is  a  starry 
night,  the  torrent  glides  swiftly  away  with  an  inverted 
firmament  in  its  bosom,  to  which  the  lamps  along  its 
shores  and  in  the  houses  on  either  side  contribute  a 
planetary  splendor  of  their  own.  By  nine  o'clock 
everything  is  hushed ;  not  a  wheel  is  heard  at  that 
dead  hour;  the  few  feet  shuffling  stealthily  through 
the  Alte  Wiese  whisper  a  caution  of  silence  to  those 
issuing  with  a  less  guarded  tread  from  the  opera ;  the 
little  bowers  that  overhang  the  stream  are  as  dark  and 
mute  as  the  restaurants  across  the  way  which  serve 
meals  in  them  by  day  ;  the  whole  place  is  as  forsaken 
as  other  cities  at  midnight.  People  get  quickly  home 
to  bed,  or  if  they  have  a  mind  to  snatch  a  belated  joy, 
they  slip  into  the  Theater-Cafe,  where  the  sleepy 
Frauleins  serve  them,  in  an  exemplary  drowse,  with 
plates  of  cold  ham  and  bottles  of  the  gently  gaseous 
waters  of  Giesshiibl.  Few  are  of  the  bold  badness 
which  delights  in  a  supper  at  Schwarzkopf's,  and  even 


240          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

these  are  glad  of  the  drawn  curtains  which  hide  their 
orgy  from  the  chance  passer. 

The  invalids  of  Burnamy's  party  kept  together, 
strengthening  themselves  in  a  mutual  purpose  not  to 
be  tempted  to  eat  anything  which  was  not  strictly 
kurgemdss.  Mrs.  March  played  upon  the  interest  which 
each  of  them  felt  in  his  own  case  so  artfully  that  she 
kept  them  talking  of  their  cure,  and  left  Burnamy  and 
Miss  Triscoe  to  a  moment  on  the  bridge,  by  which 
they  profited,  while  the  others  strolled  on,  to  lean 
against  the  parapet  and  watch  the  lights  in  the  skies 
and  the  water,  and  be  alone  together.  The  stream 
shone  above  and  below,  and  found  its  way  out  of  and 
into  the  darkness  tinder  the  successive  bridges ;  the 
town  climbed  into  the  night  with  lamp-lit  windows 
here  and  there,  till  the  woods  of  the  hill-sides  dark 
ened  down  to  meet  it,  and  fold  it  in  an  embrace  from 
which  some  white  edifice  showed  palely  in  the  farth 
est  gloom. 

He  tried  to  make  her  think  they  could  see  that 
great  iron  crucifix  which  watches  over  it  day  and 
night  from  its  piny  cliff.  He  had  a  fancy  for  a  poem, 
very  impressionistic,  which  should  convey  the  notion 
of  the  crucifix's  vigil.  He  submitted  it  to  her ;  and 
they  remained  talking  till  the  others  had  got  out  of 
sight  and  hearing ;  and  she  was  letting  him  keep  the 
hand  on  her  arm  which  he  had  put  there  to  hold  her 
from  falling  over  the  parapet,  when  they  were  both 
startled  by  approaching  steps,  and  a  voice  calling, 
"  Look  here  !  Who's  running  this  supper  party,  any 
way?" 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  241 

His  wife  had  detached  March  from  her  group  for 
the  mission,  as  soon  as  she  felt  that  the  young  people 
were  abusing  her  kindness.  They  answered  him  with 
hysterical  laughter,  and  Burnamy  said,  "  Why,  it's 
Mr.  Stoller's  treat,  you  know." 

At  the  restaurant,  where  the  proprietor  obsequi 
ously  met  the  party  on  the  threshold  and  bowed  them 
into  a  pretty  inner  room,  with  a  table  set  for  their 
supper,  Stoller  had  gained  courage  to  play  the  host 
openly.  He  appointed  General  Triscoe  to  the  chief 
seat ;  he  would  have  put  his  daughter  next  to  him,  if 
the  girl  had  not  insisted  upon  Mrs.  March's  having 
the  place,  and  going  herself  to  sit  next  to  March,  whom 
she  said  she  had  not  been  able  to  speak  a  word  to  the 
whole  evening.  But  she  did  not  talk  a  great  deal  to 
him  ;  he  smiled  to  find  how  soon  he  dropped  out  of 
the  conversation,  and  Burnamy,  from  his  greater  re 
moteness  across  the  table,  dropped  into  it.  He  really 
preferred  the  study  of  Stoller,  whose  instinct  of  a 
greater  worldly  quality  in  the  Triscoes  interested  him ; 
he  could  see  him  listening  now  to  what  General  Tris 
coe  was  saying  to  Mrs.  March,  and  now  to  what  Bur 
namy  was  saying  to  Miss  Triscoe ;  his  strong,  selfish 
face,  as  he  turned  it  on  the  young  people,  expressed  a 
mingled  grudge  and  greed  that  was  very  curious. 

Stoller's  courage,  which  had  come  and  gone  at  mo 
ments  throughout,  rose  at  the  end,  and  while  they 
lingered  at  the  table  well  on  to  the  hour  of  ten,  he 
said,  in  the  sort  of  helpless  offence  he  had  with  Bur 
namy,  "  What's  the  reason  we  can't  all  go  out  to-mor 
row  to  that  old  castle  you  was  talking  about?" 


242  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  To  Engelhaus  ?  I  don't  know  any  reason,  as  far  as 
I'm  concerned,"  answered  Burnamy ;  but  he  refused 
the  initiative  offered  him,  and  Stoller  was  obliged  to 
ask  March : 

"You  heard  about  it?" 

"  Yes."  General  Triscoe  was  listening,  and  March 
added  for  him,  "  It  was  the  hold  of  an  old  robber 
baron ;  Gustavus  Adolphus  knocked  it  down,  and  it's 
very  picturesque,  I  believe." 

"  It  sounds  promising,"  said  the  general.  "  Where 
is  it?" 

"  Isn't  to-morrow  your  mineral  bath?  "  Mrs.  March 
interposed  between  her  husband  and  temptation. 

"  No ;  the  day  after.  Why,  it's  about  ten  or  twelve 
miles  out  on  the  old  postroad  that  Napoleon  took  for 
Prague." 

"  Napoleon  knew  a  good  road  when  he  saw  it,"  said 
the  general,  and  he  alone  of  the  company  lighted  a 
cigar.  He  was  decidedly  in  favor  of  the  excursion, 
and  he  arranged  for  it  with  Stoller,  whom  he  had  the 
effect  of  using  for  his  pleasure  as  if  he  were  doing 
him  a  favor.  They  were  six,  and  two  carriages  would 
take  them :  a  two-spanner  for  four,  and  a  one-spanner 
for  two ;  they  could  start  directly  after  dinner,  and 
get  home  in  time  for  supper. 

Stoller  asserted  himself  to  say :  "  That's  all  right, 
then.  I  want  you  to  be  my  guests,  and  I'll  see  about 
the  carriages."  He  turned  to  Burnamy :  "  Will  you 
order  them  ? " 

"  Oh,"  said  the  young  fellow,  with  a  sort  of  dry- 
ness,  "iheportier  will  get  them." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  243 

"  I  don't  understand  why  General  Triscoe  was  so 
willing  to  accept.  Surely,  he  can't  like  that  man  ! " 
said  Mrs.  March  to  her  husband  in  their  own  room. 

"  Oh,  I  fancy  that  wouldn't  be  essential.  The  gen 
eral  seems  to  me  capable  of  letting  even  an  enemy 
serve  his  turn.  Why  didn't  you  speak,  if  you  didn't 
want  to  go  ? " 

"  Why  didn't  you  ?  " 

"  I  wanted  to  go." 

"  And  I  knew  it  wouldn't  do  to  let  Miss  Triscoe  go 
alone ;  I  could  see  that  she  wished  to  go." 

"  Do  you  think  Burnamy  did  ? " 

"  He  seemed  rather  indifferent.  And  yet  he  must 
have  realized  that  he  would  be  with  Miss  Triscoe  the 
whole  afternoon," 


XXXV. 

IF  Burnamy  and  Miss  Triscoe  took  the  lead  in  the 
one-spanner,  and  the  others  followed  in  the  two-span 
ner,  it  was  not  from  want  of  politeness  on  the  part  of 
the  young  people  in  offering  to  give  up  their  places 
to  each  of  their  elders  in  turn.  It  would  have  been 
grotesque  for  either  March  or  Stoller  to  drive  with 
the  girl ;  for  her  father  it  was  apparently  no  question, 
after  a  glance  at  the  more  rigid  uprightness  of  the 
seat  in  the  one-spanner;  and  he  accepted  the  place 
beside  Mrs.  March  on  the  back  seat  of  the  two-span 
ner  without  demur.  He  asked  her  leave  to  smoke, 
and  then  he  scarcely  spoke  to  her.  But  he  talked  to 
the  two  men  in  front  of  him  almost  incessantly,  ha 
ranguing  them  upon  the  inferiority  of  our  conditions 
and  the  futility  of  our  hopes  as  a  people,  with  the 
effect  of  bewildering  the  cruder  arrogance  of  Stoller, 
who  could  have  got  on  with  Triscoe's  contempt  for 
the  worthlessness  of  our  working-classes,  but  did  not 
know  what  to  do  with  his  scorn  of  the  vulgarity  and 
venality  of  their  employers.  He  accused  some  of 
Stoller's  most  honored  and  envied  capitalists  of  being 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  245 

the  source  of  our  worst  corruptions,  and  guiltier  than 
the  voting-cattle  whom  they  bought  and  sold. 

"  I  think  we  can  get  rid  of  the  whole  trouble  if  we 
go  at  it  the  right  way,"  Stoller  said,  diverging  for  the 
sake  of  the  point  he  wished  to  bring  in.  "I  believe 
in  having  the  government  run  on  business  principles. 
They've  got  it  here  in  Carlsbad,  already,  just  the 
right  sort  of  thing,  and  it  works.  I  been  lookin' 
into  it,  and  I  got  this  young  man,  yonder" — he 
twisted  his  hand  in  the  direction  of  the  one-spanner 
• — "  to  help  me  put  it  in  shape.  I  believe  it's  going 
to  make  our  folks  think,  the  best  ones  among  them. 
Here ! "  He  drew  a  newspaper  out  of  his  pocket, 
folded  to  show  two  columns  in  their  full  length,  and 
handed  it  to  Triscoe,  who  took  it  with  no  great  eager 
ness,  and  began  to  run  his  eye  over  it.  "  You  tell  me 
what  you  think  of  that.  I've  put  it  out  for  a  kind  of 
a  feeler.  I  got  some  money  in  that  paper,  and  I  just 
thought  I'd  let  our  people  see  how  a  city  can  be  man 
aged  on  business  principles." 

He  kept  his  eye  eagerly  upon  Triscoe,  as  if  to  fol 
low  his  thought  while  he  read,  and  keep  him  up  to 
the  work,  and  he  ignored  the  Marches  so  entirely  that 
they  began  in  self-defence  to  talk  with  each  other. 

Their  carriage  had  climbed  from  Carlsbad  in  long 
irregular  curves  to  the  breezy  upland  where  the  great 
highroad  to  Prague  ran  through  fields  of  harvest. 
They  had  come  by  heights  and  slopes  of  forest,  where 
the  serried  sterns  of  the  tall  firs  showed  brown  and 
whitish-blue  and  grew  straight  as  stalks  of  grain ;  and 
now  on  either  side  the  farms  opened  under  a  sky  of 


246  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

unwonted  cloudlessness.  Narrow  strips  of  wheat  and 
rye,  which  the  men  were  cutting  with  sickles,  and  the 
women  in  red  bodices  were  binding,  alternated  with 
ribands  of  yellowing  oats  and  grass,  and  breadths  of 
beets  and  turnips,  with  now  and  then  lengths  of 
ploughed  land.  In  the  meadows  the  peasants  were 
piling  their  carts  with  heavy  rowen,  the  girls  lifting 
the  hay  on  the  forks,  and  the  men  giving  themselves 
the  lighter  labor  of  ordering  the  load.  From  the  up 
turned  earth,  where  there  ought  to  have  been  troops 
of  strutting  crows,  a  few  sombre  ravens  rose.  But 
they  could  not  rob  the  scene  of  its  gayety ;  it  smiled 
in  the  sunshine  with  colors  which  vividly  followed  the 
slope  of  the  land  till  they  were  dimmed  in  the  forests 
on  the  far-off  mountains.  Nearer  and  farther,  the 
cottages  and  villages  shone  in  the  valleys,  or  glimmer 
ed  through  the  veils  of  the  distant  haze.  Over  all 
breathed  the  keen  pure  air  of  the  hills,  with  a  senti 
ment  of  changeless  eld,  which  charmed  March  back 
to  his  boyhood,  where  he  lost  the  sense  of  his  wife's 
presence,  and  answered  her  vaguely.  She  talked  con 
tentedly  on  in  the  monologue  to  which  the  wives  of 
absent-minded  men  learn  to  resign  themselves.  They 
were  both  roused^  from  their  vagary  by  the  voice  of 
General  Triscoe.  He  was  handing  back  the  folded 
newspaper  to  Stoller,  and  saying,  with  a  queer  look  at 
him  over  his  glasses,  "  I  should  like  to  see  what  your 
contemporaries  have  to  say  to  all  that." 

"  Well,  sir,"  Stoller  returned,  "  maybe  I'll  have  the 
chance  to  show  you.  They  got  my  instructions  over 
there  to  send  everything  to  me." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  247 

Burnamy  and  Miss  Triscoe  gave  little  heed  to  the 
landscape  as  landscape.  They  agreed  that  the  human 
interest  was  the  great  thing  on  a  landscape,  after  all; 
but  they  ignored  the  peasants  in  the  fields  and  mead 
ows,  who  were  no  more  to  them  than  the  driver  on 
the  box,  or  the  people  in  the  two-spanner  behind. 
They  were  talking  of  the  hero  and  heroine  of  a  novel 
they  had  both  read,  and  he  was  saying,  "  I  suppose 
you  think  he  was  justly  punished." 

"  Punished  ? "  she  repeated.  "  Why,  they  got  mar 
ried,  after  all !  " 

"  Yes,  but  you  could  see  that  they  were  not  going 
to  be  happy." 

"  Then  it  seems  to  me  that  she  was  punished,  too." 

"Well,  yes;  you  might  say  that.  The  author 
couldn't  heip  that." 

Miss  Triscoe  was  silent  a  moment  before  she  said  : 
"  I  always  thought  the  author  was  rather  hard  on  the 
hero.  The  girl  was  very  exacting." 

"  Why,"  said  Burnamy,  "  I  supposed  that  women 
hated  anything  like  deception  in  men  too  much  to 
tolerate  it  at  all.  Of  course,  in  this  case,  he  didn't 
deceive  her;  he  let  her  deceive  herself;  but  wasn't 
that  worse  ? " 

"  Yes,  that  was  worse.  She  could  have  forgiven 
him  for  deceiving  her." 

"  Oh ! " 

"  He  might  have  had  to  do  that.  She  wouldn't 
have  minded  his  fibbing  outright,  so  much,  for  then 
it  wouldn't  have  seemed  to  come  from  his  nature. 
But  if  he  just  let  her  believe  what  wasn't  true,  and 


248  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

didn't  say  a  word  to  prevent  her,  of  course  it  was 
worse.  It  showed  something  weak,  something  cow 
ardly  in  him." 

Burnamy  gave  a  little  cynical  laugh.  "  I  suppose 
it  did.  But  don't  you  think  it's  rather  rough,  ex 
pecting  us  to  have  all  the  kinds  of  courage  ? " 

"  Yes,  it  is,"  she  assented.  "  That  is  why  I  say 
she  was  too  exacting.  But  a  man  oughn't  to  defend 
him." 

Burnamy's  laugh  had  more  pleasure  in  it,  now. 
"  Another  wroman  might  ?  " 

"  No.     She  might  excuse  him." 

He  turned  to  look  back  at  the  two-spanner;  it  was 
rather  far  behind,  and  he  spoke  to  their  driver  bid 
ding  him  go  slowly  till  it  caught  up  with  them.  By 
the  time  it  did  so,  they  were  so  close  to  the  ruin  that 
they  could  distinguish  the  lines  of  its  wandering  and 
broken  walls.  Ever  since  they  had  climbed  from  the 
wooded  depths  of  the  hills  above  Carlsbad  to  the  open 
plateau,  it  had  shown  itself  in  greater  and  greater  de 
tail.  The  detached  mound  of  rock  on  which  it  stood 
rose  like  an  island  in  the  midst  of  the  plain,  and  com 
manded  the  highways  in  every  direction. 

"  I  believe,"  Burnamy  broke  out,  with  a  bitterness 
apparently  relevant  to  the  ruin  alone,  "  that  if  you 
hadn't  required  any  quarterings  of  nobility  from  him, 
Stoller  would  have  made  a  good  sort  of  robber  baron. 
He's  a  robber  baron  by  nature,  now,  and  he  wouldn't 
have  any  scruple  in  levying  tribute  on  us  here  in  our 
one-spanner,  if  his  castle  was  in  good  repair  and  his 
crossbowmen  were  not  on  a  strike.  But  they  would 


THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  249 

be  on  a  strike,  probably,  and  then  he  would  lock  them 
out,  and  employ  none  but  non-union  crossbowmen." 

If  Miss  Triscoe  understood  that  he  arraigned  the 
morality  as  well  as  the  civility  of  his  employer,  she 
did  not  take  him  more  seriously  than  he  meant,  ap 
parently,  for  she  smiled  as  she  said,  "  I  don't  see 
how  you  can  have  anything  to  do  with  him,  if  you 
feel  so  about  him." 

"  Oh,"  Burnamy  replied  in  kind,  "  he  buys  my  pov 
erty  and  not  my  will.  And  perhaps  if  I  thought  bet 
ter  of  myself,  I  should  respect  him  more." 

"  Have  you  been  doing  something  very  wicked  ? " 

"  What  should  you  have  to  say  to  me,  if  I  had  ? " 
he  bantered. 

"  Oh,  I  should  have  nothing  at  all  to  say  to  you," 
she  mocked  back. 

They  turned  a  corner  of  the  highway,  and  drove 
rattling  through  a  village  street  up  a  long  slope  to  the 
rounded  hill  which  it  crowned.  A  church  at  its  base 
looked  out  upon  an  irregular  square. 

A  gaunt  figure  of  a  man,  with  a  staring  mask,  which 
seemed  to  hide  a  darkling  mind  within,  came  out  of 
the  church,  and  locked  it  behind  him.  He  proved  to 
be  the  sacristan,  and  the  keeper  of  all  the  village's 
claims  upon  the  visitors'  interest;  he  mastered,  after 
a  moment,  their  wishes  in  respect  to  the  castle,  and 
showed  the  path  that  led  to  it ;  at  the  top,  he  said, 
they  would  find  a  custodian  of  the  ruins  who  would 
admit  them. 


XXXVI. 

THE  path  to  the  castle  slanted  upward  across  the 
shoulder  of  the  hill,  to  a  certain  point,  and  there  some 
rude  stone  steps  mounted  more  directly.  Wilding 
lilac-bushes,  as  if  from  some  forgotten  garden,  bor 
dered  the  ascent ;  the  chickory  opened  its  blue  flower ; 
the  clean  bitter  odor  of  vermouth  rose  from  the  trod 
den  turf ;  but  Nature  spreads  no  such  lavish  feast  in 
wood  or  field  in  the  Old  World  as  she  spoils  us  with 
in  the  New ;  a  few  kinds,  repeated  again  and  again, 
seem  to  be  all  her  store,  and  man  must  make  the  most 
of  them.  Miss  Triscoe  seemed  to  find  flowers  enough 
in  the  simple  bouquet  which  Burnamy  put  together 
for  her.  She  took  it,  and  then  gave  it  back  to  him, 
that  she  might  have  both  hands  for  her  skirt,  and  so 
did  him  two  favors. 

A  superannuated  forester  of  the  nobleman  who 
owns  the  ruin  opened  a  gate  for  the  party  at  the  top, 
and  levied  a  tax  of  thirty  kreutzers  each  upon  them, 
for  its  maintenance.  The  castle,  by  his  story,  had 
descended  from  robber  sire  to  robber  son,  till  Gusta- 
vus  knocked  it  to  pieces  in  the  sixteenth  century  ; 
three  hundred  years  later,  the  present  owner  restored 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  251 

it ;  and  now  its  broken  walls  and  arches,  built  of 
rubble  mixed  with  brick,  and  neatly  pointed  up  with 
cement,  form  a  ruin  satisfyingly  permanent.  The 
walls  were  not  of  great  extent,  but  such  as  they  were 
they  enclosed  several  dungeons  and  a  chapel,  all 
underground,  and  a  cistern  which  once  enabled  the 
barons  and  their  retainers  to  water  their  wine  in  time 
of  siege. 

From  that  height  they  could  overlook  the  neighbor 
ing  highways  in  every  direction,  and  could  bring  a 
merchant  train  to,  with  a  shaft  from  a  crossbow,  or  a 
shot  from  an  arquebuse,  at  pleasure.  With  General 
Triscoe's  leave,  March  praised  the  strategic  strength 
of  the  unique  position,  which  he  found  expressive  of 
the  past,  and  yet  suggestive  of  the  present.  It  was 
more  a  difference  in  method  than  anything  else  that 
distinguished  the  levy  of  customs  by  the  authorities 
then  and  now.  What  was  the  essential  difference, 
between  taking  tribute  of  travellers  passing  on  horse 
back,  and  collecting  dues  from  travellers  arriving  by 
steamer?  They  did  not  pay  voluntarily  in  either 
case ;  but  it  might  be  a  proof  of  progress  that  they 
no  longer  fought  the  customs  officials. 

"  Then  you  believe  in  free  trade,"  said  Stoller,  se 
verely. 

"  No.  I  am  just  inquiring  which  is  the  best  way  of 
enforcing  the  tariff  laws." 

"  I  saw  in  the  Paris  Chronicle,  last  night,"  said  Miss 
Triscoe,  "  that  people  are  kept  on  the  docks  now  for 
hours,  and  ladies  cry  at  the  way  their  things  are  tum 
bled  over  by  the  inspectors." 


252          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  It's  shocking,"  said  Mrs.  March,  magisterially. 

"  It  seems  to  be  a  return  to  the  scenes  of  feudal 
times,"  her  husband  resumed.  "But  I'm  glad  the 
travellers  make  no  resistance.  I'm  opposed  to  private 
war  as  much  as  I  am  to  free  trade." 

"  It  all  comes  round  to  the  same  thing  at  last,"  said 
General  Triscoe.  "  Your  precious  humanity — " 

"  Oh,  I  don't  claim  it  exclusively,"  March  protested. 

"  Well,  then,  our  precious  humanity  is  like  a  man 
that  has  lost  his  road.  He  thinks  he  is  finding  his 
way  out,  but  he  is  merely  rounding  on  his  course,  and 
coming  back  to  where  he  started." 

Stoller  said,  "  I  think  we  ought  to  make  it  so  rough 
for  them,  over  here,  that  they  will  come  to  America 
and  set  up,  if  they  can't  stand  the  duties." 

"  Oh,  we  ought  to  make  it  rough  for  them  anyway," 
March  consented. 

If  Stoller  felt  his  irony,  he  did  not  know  what  to 
answer.  He  followed  with  his  eyes  the  manoeuvre  by 
which  Burnamy  and  Miss  Triscoe  eliminated  them 
selves  from  the  discussion,  and  strayed  off  to  another 
corner  of  the  ruin,  where  they  sat  down  on  the  turf 
in  the  shadow  of  the  wall ;  a  thin,  upland  breeze  drew 
across  them,  but  the  sun  was  hot.  The  land  fell  away 
from  the  height,  and  then  rose  again  on  every  side  in 
carpetlike  fields  and  in  long  curving  bands,  whose 
parallel  colors  passed  unblended  into  the  distance. 
"  I  don't  suppose,"  Burnamy  said,  "  that  life  ever 
does  much  better  than  this,  do  you?  I  feel  like 
knocking  on  a  piece  of  wood  and  saying  *  Unberufen.' 
I  might  knock  on  your  bouquet ;  that's  wood." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  253 

"  It  would  spoil  the  flowers,"  she  said,  looking 
down  at  them  in  her  belt.  She  looked  up  and  their 
eyes  met. 

"  I  wonder,"  he  said,  presently,  "  what  makes  us 
always  have  a  feeling  of  dread  when  we  are  happy  ? " 

"  Do  you  have  that,  too  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Yes.  Perhaps  it's  because  we  know  that  change 
must  come,  and  it  must  be  for  the  worse." 

"  That  must  be  it.  I  never  thought  of  it  before, 
though." 

"  If  we  had  got  so  far  in  science  that  we  could 
predict  psychological  weather,  and  could  know  twen 
ty-four  hours  ahead  when  a  warm  wave  of  bliss  or  a 
cold  wave  of  misery  was  coming,  and  prepare  for 
smiles  and  tears  beforehand — it  may  come  to  that." 

"  I  hope  it  won't.  I'd  rather  not  know  when  I  was 
to  be  happy ;  it  would  spoil  the  pleasure ;  and  wouldn't 
be  any  compensation  when  it  was  the  other  way." 

A  shadow  fell  across  them,  and  Burnamy  glanced 
round  to  see  Stoller  looking  down  at  them,  with  a 
slant  of  the  face  that  brought  his  aquiline  profile  into 
relief.  "  Oh  !  Have  a  turf,  Mr.  Stoller  ?  "  he  called 
gayly  up  to  him. 

"  I  guess  we've  seen  about  all  there  is,"  he  answered. 
"  Hadn't  we  better  be  going  ? "  He  probably  did  not 
mean  to  be  mandatory. 

"  All  right,"  said  Burnamy,  and  he  turned  to  speak 
to  Miss  Triscoe  again  without  further  notice  of  him. 

They  all  descended  to  the  church  at  the  foot  of  the 
hill  where  the  weird  sacristan  was  waiting  to  show 
them  the  cold,  bare  interior,  and  to  account  for  its 


254  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

newness  with  the  fact  that  the  old  church  had  been 
burnt,  and  this  one  built  only  a  few  years  before. 
Then  he  locked  the  doors  after  them,  and  ran  forward 
to  open  against  their  coming  the  chapel  of  the  village 
cemetery,  which  they  were  to  visit  after  they  had  for 
tified  themselves  for  it  at  the  village  cafe. 

They  were  served  by  a  little  hunch-back  maid ;  and 
she  told  them  who  lived  in  the  chief  house  of  the  vil 
lage.  It  was  uncommonly  pretty,  where  all  the  houses 
were  picturesque,  and  she  spoke  of  it  with  respect  as 
the  dwelling  of  a  rich  magistrate  who  was  clearly  the 
great  man  of  the  place.  March  admired  the  cat  which 
rubbed  against  her  skirt  while  she  stood  and  talked, 
and  she  took  his  praises  modestly  for  the  cat;  but 
they  wrought  upon  the  envy  of  her  brother  so  that  he 
ran  off  to  the  garden,  and  came  back  with  two  fat, 
sleepy-eyed  puppies  which  he  held  up,  with  an  arm 
across  each  of  their  stomachs,  for  the  acclaim  of  the 
spectators. 

"  Oh,  give  him  something  !  "  Mrs.  March  entreated. 
"  He's  such  a  dear." 

"  No,  no  !  I  am  not  going  to  have  my  little  hunch 
back  and  her  cat  outdone,"  he  refused ;  and  then  he 
was  about  to  yield. 

"  Hold  on  !  "  said  Stoller,  assuming  the  host.  "  I 
got  the  change." 

He  gave  the  boy  a  few  kreutzers,  when  Mrs.  March 
had  meant  her  husband  to  reward  his  naivete  with 
half  a  florin  at  least ;  but  he  seemed  to  feel  that  he 
had  now  ingratiated  himself  with  the  ladies,  and  he 
put  himself  in  charge  of  them  for  the  walk  to  the 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  255 

cemetery  chapel ;  he  made  Miss  Triscoe  let  him  carry 
her  jacket  when  she  found  it  warm. 

The  chapel  is  dedicated  to  the  Holy  Trinity,  and 
the  Jesuit  brother  who  designed  it,  two  or  three  cen 
turies  ago,  indulged  a  devotional  fancy  in  the  trian 
gular  form  of  the  structure  and  the  decorative  details. 
Everything  is  three-cornered;  the  whole  chapel,  to 
begin  with,  and  then  the  ark  of  the  high  altar  in  the 
middle  of  it,  and  each  of  the  three  side-altars.  The 
clumsy  baroque  taste  of  the  architecture  is  a  German 
version  of  the  impulse  that  was  making  Italy  fantastic 
at  the  time ;  the  carving  is  coarse,  and  the  color  harsh 
and  unsoftened  by  years,  though  it  is  broken  and 
obliterated  in  places. 

The  sacristan  said  that  the  chapel  was  never  used 
for  anything  but  funeral  services,  and  he  led  the  way 
out  into  the  cemetery,  where  he  wished  to  display  the 
sepultural  devices.  The  graves  here  were  planted 
with  flowers,  and  some  were  in  a  mourning  of  black 
pansies ;  but  a  space  fenced  apart  from  the  rest  held 
a  few  neglected  mounds,  overgrown  with  weeds  and 
brambles.  This  space,  he  said,  was  for  suicides;  but 
to  March  it  was  not  so  ghastly  as  the  dapper  grief  of 
certain  tombs  in  consecrated  ground  where  the  stones 
had  photographs  of  the  dead  on  porcelain  let  into 
them.  One  was  the  picture  of  a  beautiful  young 
woman,  who  had  been  the  wife  of  the  local  magnate ; 
an  eternal  love  was  vowed  to  her  in  the  inscription, 
but  now,  the  sacristan  said,  with  nothing  of  irony,  the 
magnate  was  married  again,  and  lived  in  that  prettiest 
house  of  the  village.  He  seemed  proud  of  the  mon- 


256  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

ument,  as  the  thing  worthiest  the  attention  of  the 
strangers,  and  he  led  them  with  less  apparent  hope 
fulness  to  the  unfinished  chapel  representing  a  Geth- 
semane,  with  the  figure  of  Christ  praying  and  his 
apostles  sleeping.  It  is  a  subject  much  celebrated  in 
terra-cotta  about  Carlsbad,  and  it  was  not  a  novelty  to 
his  party ;  still,  from  its  surroundings,  it  had  a  fresh 
pathos,  and  March  tried  to  make  him  understand  that 
they  appreciated  it.  He  knew  that  his  wife  wished 
the  poor  man  to  think  he  had  done  them  a  great  favor 
in  showing  it ;  he  had  been  touched  with  all  the  vain 
sliows  of  grief  in  the  poor,  ugly  little  place ;  most  of 
all  he  had  felt  the  exile  of  those  who  had  taken  their 
own  lives  and  were  parted  in  death  from  the  more 
patient  sufferers  who  had  waited  for  God  to  take 
them.  With  a  curious,  unpainful  self-analysis  he 
noted  that  the  older  members  of  the  party,  who  in 
the  course  of  nature  were  so  much  nearer  death,  did 
not  shrink  from  its  shows  ;  but  the  young  girl  and  the 
young  man  had  not  borne  to  look  on  them,  and  had 
quickly  escaped  from  the  place,  somewhere  outside 
the  gate.  Was  it  the  beginning,  the  promise  of  that 
reconciliation  with  death  which  nature  brings  to  life 
at  last,  or  was  it  merely  the  effect,  or  defect,  of  ossi 
fied  sensibilities,  of  toughened  nerves  ? 

"  That  is  all  ? "  he  asked  of  the  spectral  sacristan. 

"  That  is  all,"  the  man  said,  and  March  felt  in  his 
pocket  for  a  coin  commensurate  to  the  service  he  had 
done  them ;  it  ought  to  be  something  handsome. 

"No,  no,"  said  Stoller,  detecting  his  gesture. 
"  Your  money  a'n't  good." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  257 

He  put  twenty  or  thirty  kreutzers  into  the  hand  of 
the  man,  who  regarded  them  with  a  disappointment 
none  the  less  cruel  because  it  was  so. patient.  In 
France,  he  would  have  been  insolent;  in  Italy,  he 
would  have  frankly  said  it  was  too  little ;  here,  he 
merely  looked  at  the  money  and  whispered  a  sad 
"  Danke." 

Burnamy  and  Miss  Triscoe  rose  from  the  grassy 
bank  outside  where  they  were  sitting,  and  waited  for 
the  elders  to  get  into  their  two-spanner. 

"  Oh,  have  I  lost  my  glove  in  there  ? "  said  Mrs. 
March,  looking  at  her  hands  and  such  parts  of  her 
dress  as  a  glove  might  cling  to. 

"  Let  me  go  and  find  it  for  you,"  Burnamy  entreated. 

"Well,"  she  consented,  and  she  added,  "If  the 
sacristan  has  found  it,  give  him  something  for  me — 
something  really  handsome,  poor  fellow." 

As  Burnamy  passed  her,  she  let  him  see  that  she 
had  both  her  gloves,  and  her  heart  yearned  upon  him 
/or  his  instant  smile  of  intelligence :  some  men  would 
have  blundered  out  that  she  had  the  lost  glove  in  her 
hand.  He  came  back  directly,  saying,  "No,  he 
didn't  find  it." 

She  laughed,  and  held  both  gloves  up.  "  No  won 
der!  I  had  it  all  the  time.  Thank  you  ever  so 
much." 

"  How  are  we  going  to  ride  back  ? "  asked  Stoller. 

Burnamy  almost  turned  pale;  Miss  Triscoe  smiled 
impenetrably.  No  one  else  spoke,  and  Mrs.  March 
said,  with  placid  authority,  "  Oh,  I  think  the  way  we 
came,  is  best." 

Q 


258  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

"  Did  that  absurd  creature,"  she  apostrophized  her 
husband  as  soon  as  she  got  him  alone  after  their  arri 
val  at  Pupp's,  "  think  I  was  going  to  let  him  drive 
back  with  Agatha  ? " 

"  I  wonder,"  said  March,  "  if  that's  what  Burnamy 
calls  her  now  ? " 

"  I  shall  despise  him  if  it  isn't." 


XXXVII. 

BURNAMY  took  up  his  mail  to  Stoller  after  the  sup 
per  which  they  had  eaten  in  a  silence  natural  with 
two  men  who  have  been  off  on  a  picnic  together.  He 
did  not  rise  from  his  writing-desk  when  Burnamy 
came  in,  and  the  young  man  did  not  sit  down  after 
putting  his  letters  before  him.  He  said,  with  an  effort 
of  forcing  himself  to  speak  at  once,  "  I  have  looked 
through  the  papers,  and  there  is  something  that  I 
think  you  ought  to  see." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  said  Stoller. 

Burnamy  laid  down  three  or  four  papers  opened  to 
pages  where  certain  articles  were  strongly  circum 
scribed  in  ink.  The  papers  varied,  but  their  editorials 
did  not,  in  purport  at  least.  Some  were  grave  and 
some  were  gay  ;  one  indignantly  denounced ;  another 
affected  an  ironical  bewilderment;  the  third  simply 
had  fun  with  the  Hon.  Jacob  Stoller.  They  all,  how 
ever,  treated  his  letter  on  the  city  government  of 
Carlsbad  as  the  praise  of  municipal  socialism,  and  the 
paper  which  had  fun  with  him  gleefully  congratulated 


260          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

the  dangerous  classes  on  the  accession  of  the  Honor 
able  Jacob  to  their  ranks. 

Stoller  read  the  articles,  one  after  another,  with 
parted  lips  and  gathering  drops  of  perspiration  on  his 
upper  lip,  while  Burnamy  waited  on  foot.  He  flung 
the  papers  all  down  at  last.  "  Why,  they're  a  pack 
of  fools!  They  don't  know  what  they're  talking 
about !  I  want  city  government  carried  on  on  busi 
ness  principles,  by  the  people,  for  the  people.  / 
don't  care  what  they  say !  I  know  I'm  right,  and  I'm 
going  ahead  on  this  line  if  it  takes  all — "  The  note 
of  defiance  died  out  of  his  voice  at  the  sight  of  Bur- 
narny's  pale  face.  "  What's  the  matter  with  you  ? " 

"  There's  nothing  the  matter  with  me." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  it  is  " — he  could  not 
bring  himself  to  use  the  word — "  what  they  say  ? " 

"  I  suppose,"  said  Burnamy,  with  a  dry  mouth, 
"  it's  what  you  may  call  municipal  socialism." 

Stoller  jumped  from  his  seat.  "  And  you  knew  it 
when  you  let  me  do  it  ? " 

"  I  supposed  you  knew  what  you  were  about." 

"  It's  a  lie !  "  Stoller  advanced  upon  him,  wildly, 
and  Burnamy  took  a  step  backward. 

"  Look  out !  "  shouted  Burnamy.  "  You  never 
asked  me  anything  about  it.  You  told  me  what  you 
wanted  done,  and  I  did  it.  How  could  I  believe  you 
were  such  an  ignoramus  as  not  to  know  the  a  b  c 
of  the  thing  you  were  talking  about  ? "  He  added, 
in  cynical  contempt :  "  But  you  needn't  worry.  You 
can  make  it  right  with  the  managers  by  spending  a 
little  more  money  than  you  expected  to  spend." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  261 

Stoller  started  as  if  the  word  money  reminded  him 
of  something.  "  I  can  take  care  of  myself,  young 
man.  How  much  do  I  owe  you  ? " 

"  Nothing ! "  said  Burnamy,  with  an  effort  for 
grandeur  which  failed  him. 

The  next  morning  as  the  Marches  sat  over  their 
coffee  at  the  Posthof,  he  came  dragging  himself  tow 
ard  them  with  such  a  haggard  air  that  Mrs.  March 
called,  before  he  reached  their  table,  "  Why,  Mr. 
Burnamy,  what's  the  matter  ?  " 

He  smiled  miserably.  "  Oh,  I  haven't  slept  very 
well.  May  I  have  my  coffee  with  you?  I  want  to 
tell  you  something;  I  want  you  to  make  me.  But  I 
can't  speak  till  the  coffee  comes.  Fraulein ! "  he 
besought  a  waitress  going  off  with  a  tray  near  them. 
"  Tell  Lili,  please,  to  bring  me  some  coffee — only 
coffee." 

He  tried  to  make  some  talk  about  the  weather, 
which  was  rainy,  and  the  Marches  helped  him,  but  the 
poor  endeavor  lagged  wretchedly  in  the  interval  be 
tween  the  ordering  and  the  coming  of  the  coffee. 
"  Ah,  thank  you,  Lili,"  he  said,  with  a  humility  which 
confirmed  Mrs.  March  in  her  instant  belief  that  he 
had  been  offering  himself  to  Miss  Triscoe  and  been 
rejected.  After  gulping  his  coffee,  he  turned  to  her : 
"  I  want  to  say  good-by.  I'm  going  away." 

"  From  Carlsbad  ? "  asked  Mrs.  March  with  a  keen 
distress. 

The  water  came  into  his  eyes.  "  Don't,  don't  be 
good  to  me,  Mrs.  March  !  I  can't  stand  it.  But  you 
won't,  when  you  know." 


262  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

He  began  to  speak  of  Stoller,  first  to  her,  but  ad 
dressing  himself  more  and  more  to  the  intelligence  of 
March,  who  let  him  go  on  without  question,  and  laid 
a  restraining  hand  upon  his  wife  when  he  saw  her 
about  to  prompt  him.  At  the  end,  "  That's  all,"  he 
said,  huskily,  and  then  he  seemed  to  be  waiting  for 
March's  comment.  He  made  none,  and  the  young 
fellow  was  forced  to  ask,  "  Well,  what  do  you  think, 
Mr.  March  ? " 

"  What  do  you  think  yourself  ? " 

"  I  think  I  behaved  badly,"  said  Burnamy,  and  a 
movement  of  protest  from  Mrs.  March  nerved  him  to 
add :  "  I  could  make  out  that  it  was  not  my  business 
to  tell  him  what  he  was  doing ;  but  I  guess  it  was ;  I 
guess  I  ought  to  have  stopped  him,  or  given  him  a 
chance  to  stop  himself.  I  suppose  I  might  have  done 
it,  if  he  had  treated  me  decently  when  I  turned  up  a 
day  late,  here  ;  or  hadn't  acted  toward  me  as  if  I  were 
a  hand  in  his  buggy-works  that  had  come  in  an  hour 
after  the  whistle  sounded." 

He  set  his  teeth,  and  an  indignant  sympathy  shone 
in  Mrs.  March's  eyes;  but  her  husband  only  looked 
the  more  serious. 

He  asked  gently,  "  Do  you  offer  that  fact  as  an 
explanation,  or  as  a  justification  ?  " 

Burnamy  laughed  forlornly.  "  It  certainly  wouldn't 
justify  me.  You  might  say  that  it  made  the  case  all 
the  worse  for  me."  March  forbore  to  say,  and  Bur 
namy  went  on.  "  But  I  didn't  suppose  they  would 
be  onto  him  so  quick,  or  perhaps  at  all.  I  thought — 
if  I  thought  anything — that  it  would  amuse  some  of 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  263 

the  fellows  in  the  office,  who  know  about  those 
things."  He  paused,  and  in  March's  continued 
silence  he  went  on.  "  The  chance  was  one  in  a  hun 
dred  that  anybody  else  would  know  where  he  had 
brought  up." 

"But  you  let  him  take  that  chance,"  March  sug 
gested. 

"  Yes,  I  let  him  take  it.  Oh,  you  know  how  mixed 
all  these  things  are !  " 

"Yes." 

"  Of  course  I  didn't  think  it  out  at  the  time.  But 
I  don't  deny  that  I  had  a  satisfaction  in  the  notion  of 
the  hornets'  nest  he  was  poking  his  thick  head  into. 
It  makes  me  sick,  now,  to  think  I  had.  I  oughtn't  to 
have  let  him  ;  he  was  perfectly  innocent  in  it.  After 
the  letter  went,  I  wanted  to  tell  him,  but  I  couldn't ; 
and  then  I  took  the  chances  too.  I  don't  believe  he 
could  have  ever  got  forward  in  politics ;  he's  too  hon 
est — or  he  isn't  dishonest  in  the  right  way.  But  that 
doesn't  let  me  out.  I  don't  defend  myself !  I  did 
wrong;  I  behaved  badly.  But  I've  suffered  for  it. 
I've  had  a  foreboding  all  the  time  that  it  would  come 
to  the  worst,  and  felt  like  a  murderer  with  his  victim 
when  I've  been  alone  with  Stoller.  When  I  could 
get  away  from  him  I  could  shake  it  off,  and  even  be 
lieve  that  it  hadn't  happened.  You  can't  think  what 
a  nightmare  it's  been !  Well,  I've  ruined  Stoller 
politically,  but  I've  ruined  myself,  too.  I've  spoiled 
my  own  life ;  I've  done  what  I  can  never  explain  to — 
to  the  people  I  want  to  have  believe  in  me ;  I've  got 
to  steal  away  like  the  thief  I  am.  Good-by  !  "  He 


264          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

jumped  to  his  feet,  and  put  out  his  hand  to  March, 
and  then  to  Mrs.  March. 

"  Why,  you're  not  going  away  now ! "  she  cried, 
in  a  daze. 

"  Yes,  I  am.  I  shall  leave  Carlsbad  on  the  eleven  - 
o'clock  train.  I  don't  think  I  shall  see  you  again." 
He  clung  to  her  hand.  "  If  you  see — General  Triscoe 
— I  wish  you'd  tell  them  I  couldn't — that  I  had  to — 
that  I  was  called  away  suddenly —  Good-by  !  "  He 
pressed  her  hand  and  dropped  it,  and  mixed  with  the 
crowd.  Then  he  came  suddenly  back,  with  a  final 
appeal  to  March :  "  Should  you — do  you  think  I  ought 
to  see  Stoller,  and — and  tell  him  I  don't  think  I  used 
him  fairly  ? " 

"  You  ought  to  know — "  March  began. 

But  before  he  could  say  more,  Burnamy  said, 
"  You're  right,"  and  was  off  again. 

"  Oh,  how  hard  you  were  with  him,  my  dear  ! " 
Mrs.  March  lamented. 

"  I  wish,"  he  said,  "  if  our  boy  ever  went  wrong 
that  some  one  would  be  as  true  to  him  as  I  was  to 
that  poor  fellow.  He  condemned  himself;  and  he 
was  right;  he  has  behaved  very  badly." 

"  You  always  overdo  things  so,  when  you  act  right 
eously  ! " 

"  Now,  Isabel !  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  know  what  you  will  say.  But  /  should 
have  tempered  justice  with  mercy." 

Her  nerves  tingled  with  pity  for  Burnamy,  but  in 
her  heart  she  was  glad  that  her  husband  had  had 
strength  to  side  with  him  against  himself,  and  she 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  265 

was  proud  of  the  forbearance  with  which  he  had  done 
it.  In  their  earlier  married  life  she  would  have  con 
fidently  taken  the  initiative  on  all  moral  questions. 
She  still  believed  that  she  was  better  fitted  for  their 
decision  by  her  Puritan  tradition  and  her  New  Eng 
land  birth,  but  once  in  a  great  crisis  when  it  seemed 
a  question  of  their  living,  she  had  weakened  before 
it,  and  he,  with  no  such  advantages,  had  somehow 
met  the  issue  with  courage  and  conscience.  She 
could  not  believe  he  did  so  by  inspiration,  but  she  had 
since  let  him  take  the  brunt  of  all  such  issues  and  the 
responsibility.  He  made  no  reply,  and  she  said :  "  I 
suppose  you'll  admit  now  there  was  always  something 
peculiar  in  the  poor  boy's  manner  to  Stoller." 

He  would  confess  no  more  than  that  there  ought 
to  have  been.  "  I  don't  see  how  he  could  stagger 
through  with  that  load  on  his  conscience.  I'm  not 
sure  I  like  his  being  able  to  do  so." 

She  was  silent  in  the  misgiving  which  she  shared 
with  him,  but  she  said :  "  I  wonder  how  far  it  has 
gone  with  him  and  Miss  Triscoe  ? " 

"  Well,  from  his  wanting  you  to  give  his  message 
to  the  general  in  the  plural — " 

"  Don't  laugh  !  It's  wicked  to  laugh  !  It's  heart 
less  !"  she  cried,  hysterically.  "What  will  he  do, 
poor  fellow  ? " 

"  I've  an  idea  that  he  will  light  on  his  feet,  some 
how.  But,  at  any  rate,  he's  doing  the  right  thing  in 
going  to  own  up  to  Stoller." 

"  Oh,  Stoller  !  I  care  nothing  for  Stoller !  Don't 
speak  to  me  of  Stoller !  " 


266  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

Burnamy  found  the  Bird  of  Prey,  as  he  no  longer 
had  the  heart  to  call  him,  walking  up  and  down  in  his 
room  like  an  eagle  caught  in  a  trap.  He  erected  his 
crest  fiercely  enough,  thoughj  when  the  young  fellow 
came  in  at  his  loudly  shouted,  "Herein!" 

"  What  do  you  want  ? "  he  demanded,  brutally. 

This  simplified  Burnamy's  task,  while  it  made  it 
more  loathsome.  He  answered  not  much  less  brutal 
ly,  "  I  want  to  tell  you  that  I  think  I  used  you  badly, 
that  I  let  you  betray  yourself,  that  I  feel  myself  to 
blame."  He  could  have  added,  "  Curse  you  !  "  with 
out  change  of  tone. 

Stoller  sneered  in  a  derision  that  showed  his  lower 
teeth  like  a  dog's  when  he  snarls.  "  You  want  to  get 
back ! " 

"  No,"  said  Burnamy,  mildly,  and  with  increasing 
sadness  as  he  spoke.  "  I  don't  want  to  get  back. 
Nothing  would  induce  me.  I'm  going  away  on  the 
first  train." 

"  Well,  you're  not !  "  shouted  Stoller.  "  You've 
lied  me  into  this — " 

"  Look  out !  "     Burnamy  turned  white. 

"  Didn't  you  lie  me  into  it,  if  you  let  me  fool  my 
self,  as  you  say  ?  "  Stoller  pursued,  and  Burnamy  felt 
himself  weaken  through  his  wrath.  "  Well,  then,  you 
got  to  lie  me  out  of  it.  I  been  going  over  the  damn 
thing,  all  night — and  you  can  do  it  for  me.  I  know 
you  can  do  it,"  he  gave  way  in  a  plea  that  was  almost 
a  whimper.  "  Look  here  !  You  see  if  you  can't. 
I'll  make  it  all  right  with  you.  I'll  pay  you  whatever 
you  think  is  right — whatever  you  say." 


THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  267 

"  Oh  ! "  said  Burnamy,  in  otherwise  unutterable 
disgust. 

" You  kin"  Stoller  went  on,  breaking  down  more 
and  more  into  his  adopted  Hoosier,  in  the  stress  of 
his  anxiety.  "  I  know  you  kin,  Mr.  Burnamy."  He 
pushed  the  paper  containing  his  letter  into  Burnamy 's 
hands,  and  pointed  out  a  succession  of  marked  pas 
sages.  "  There  !  And  here  !  And  this  place  !  Don't 
you  see  how  you  could  make  out  that  it  meant  some 
thing  else,  or  was  just  ironical?"  He  went  on  to 
prove  how  the  text  might  be  given  the  complexion  he 
wished,  and  Burnamy  saw  that  he  had  really  thought 
it  not  impossibly  out.  "  I  can't  put  it  in  writing  as 
well  as  you  ;  but  I've  done  all  the  work,  and  all  you've 
got  to  do  is  to  give  it  some  of  them  turns  of  yours. 
I'll  cable  the  fellows  in  our  office  to  say  I've  been  mis 
represented,  and  that  my  correction  is  coming.  We'll 
get  it  into  shape  here  together,  and  then  I'll  cable 
that.  I  don't  care  for  the  money.  And  I'll  get  our 
counting-room  to  see  this  scoundrel " — he  picked  up 
the  paper  that  had  had  fun  with  him — "  and  fix  him 
all  right,  so  that  he'll  ask  for  a  suspension  of  public 
opinion,  and —  You  see,  don't  you  ?  " 

The  thing  did  appeal  to  Burnamy.  If  it  could  be 
done,  it  would  enable  him  to  make  Stoller  the  repara 
tion  he  longed  to  make  him  more  than  anything  else 
in  the  world.  But  he  heard  himself  saying,  very 
gently,  almost  tenderly,  "  It  might  be  done,  Mr.  Stol 
ler.  But  /  couldn't  do  it.  It  wouldn't  be  honest — 
for  me." 

"  Yah  !  "  yelled  Stoller,  and  he  crushed  the  paper 


268          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

into  a  wad  and  flung  it  into  Burnamy's  face.  "  Hon 
est,  you  damn  humbug !  You  let  me  in  for  this,  when 
you  knew  I  didn't  mean  it,  and  now  you  won't  help 
me  out  because  it  a'n't  honest !  Get  out  of  my  room, 
and  get  out  quick  before  I — " 

He  hurled  himself  toward  Burnamy,  who  straight 
ened  himself,  with  "  If  you  dare !  "  He  knew  that 
he  was  right  in  refusing;  but  he  knew  that  Stoller 
was  right,  too,  and  that  he  had  not  meant  the  logic  of 
what  he  had  said  in  his  letter,  and  of  what  Burnamy 
had  let  him  imply.  He  braved  Stoller's  onset,  and 
he  left  his  presence  untouched,  but  feeling  as  little 
like  a  moral  hero  as  he  well  could. 


XXXVIII. 

GENERAL  Triscoe  woke  in  the  bad  humor  of  an 
elderly  man  after  a  day's  pleasure,  and  in  the  self-re 
proach  of  a  pessimist  who  has  lost  his  point  of  view 
for  a  time,  and  has  to  work  back  to  it.  He  began  at 
the  belated  breakfast  with  his  daughter  when  she  said, 
after  kissing  nim  gayly,  in  the  small  two-seated  bower 
where  they  breakfasted  at  their  hotel  when  they  did 
not  go  to  the  Posthof,  "  Didn't  you  have  a  nice  time, 
yesterday,  papa  ?  " 

She  sank  into  the  chair  opposite,  and  beamed  at 
him  across  the  little  iron  table,  as  she  lifted  the  pot 
to  pour  out  his  coffee. 

"  What  do  you  call  a  nice  time  ? "  he  temporized, 
not  quite  able  to  resist  her  gayety. 

"  Well,  the  kind  of  time  /  had." 

"Did  you  get  rheumatism  from  sitting  on  the 
grass  ?  I  took  cold  in  that  old  church,  and  the  tea 
at  that  restaurant  must  have  been  brewed  in  a  brass 
kettle.  I  suffered  all  night  from  it.  And  that  ass 
from  Illinois — " 

"  Oh,  poor  papa !  I  couldn't  go  with  Mr.  Stoller 
alone,  but  I  might  have  gone  in  the  two-spanner  with 


270  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

him  and  let  you  have  Mr.  or  Mrs.  March  in  the  one- 
spanner." 

"  I  don't  know.  Their  interest  in  each  other  isn't 
so  interesting  to  other  people  as  they  seem  to  think." 

"  Do  you  feel  that  way  really,  papa  ?  Don't  you 
like  their  being  so  much  in  love  still  ? " 

"At  their  time  of  life?  Thank  you;  it's  bad 
enough  in  young  people." 

The  girl  did  not  answer;  she  appeared  altogether 
occupied  in  pouring  out  her  father's  coffee. 

He  tasted  it,  and  then  he  drank  pretty  well  all  of 
it ;  but  he  said,  as  he  put  his  cup  down,  "  /  don't 
know  what  they  make  this  stuff  of.  I  wish  I  had  a 
cup  of  good,  honest  American  coffee." 

"  Oh,  there's  nothing  like  American  food  ! "  said 
his  daughter,  with  so  much  conciliation  that  he  looked 
up  sharply. 

But  whatever  he  might  have  been  going  to  say  was 
at  least  postponed  by  the  approach  of  a  serving-maid, 
who  brought  a  note  to  his  daughter.  She  blushed  a 
little  at  sight  of  it,  and  then  tore  it  open  and  read : 
"  I  am  going  away  from  Carlsbad,  for  a  fault  of  my 
own  which  forbids  me  to  look  you  in  the  face.  If 
you  wish  to  know  the  worst  of  me,  ask  Mrs.  March. 
I  have  no  heart  to  tell  you." 

Agatha  read  these  mystifying  words  of  Burnamy's 
several  times  over  in  a  silent  absorption  with  them 
which  left  her  father  to  look  after  himself,  and  he 
had  poured  out  a  second  cup  of  coffee  with  his  own 
hand,  and  was  reaching  for  the  bread  beside  her  be 
fore  she  came  slowly  back  to  a  sense  of  his  presence. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING  JOURNEY.  271 

"  Oh,  excuse  me,  papa,"  she  said,  and  she  gave  him 
the  butter.  "  Here's  a  very  strange  letter  from  Mr. 
Burnamy,  which  I  think  you'd  better  see."  She  held 
the  note  across  the  table  to  him,  and  watched  his  face 
as  he  read  it. 

After  he  had  read  it  twice,  he  turned  the  sheet 
over,  as  people  do  with  letters  that  puzzle  them,  in 
the  vain  hope  of  something  explanatory  on  the  back. 
Then  he  looked  up  and  asked:  "What  do  you  sup 
pose  he's  been  doing  ?  " 

"  I  don't  believe  he's  been  doing  anything.  It's 
something  that  Mr.  Stoller's  been  doing  to  him." 

"  I  shouldn't  infer  that  from  his  own  words.  What 
makes  you  think  the  trouble  is  with  Stoller  ? " 

"  He  said — he  said  yesterday — something  about 
being  glad  to  be  through  with  him,  because  he  dis 
liked  him  so  much  he  was  always  afraid  of  wronging 
him.  And  that  proves  that  now  Mr.  Stoller  has  made 
him  believe  that  he's  done  wrong,  and  has  worked 
upon  him  till  he  does  believe  it." 

"  It  proves  nothing  of  the  kind,"  said  the  general, 
recurring  to  the  note.  After  reading  it  again,  he 
looked  keenly  at  her:  "  Am  I  to  understand  that  you 
have  given  him  the  right  to  suppose  you  would  want 
to  know  the  worst — or  the  best  of  him  ?  " 

The  girl's  eyes  fell,  and  she  pushed  her  knife 
against  her  plate.  She  began  :  "  No — ' 

"  Then  confound  his  impudence ! "  the  general 
broke  out.  "  What  business  has  he  to  write  to  you 
at  all  about  this  ?  " 

"  Because  he  couldn't  go  away  without  it ! "  she  re- 


OF   THF 

UNIVERSITY   J 


or 


272  THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

torted;  and  she  met  her  father's  eye  courageously. 
" He  had  a  right  to  think  we  were  his  friends;  and  if 
he  has  done  wrong,  or  is  in  disgrace  any  way,  isn't  it 
manly  of  him  to  wish  to  tell  us  first  himself  ? " 

Her  father  could  not  say  that  it  was  not.  But  he 
could  and  did  say,  very  sceptically  :  "  Stuff !  Now, 
see  here,  Agatha :  what  are  you  going  to  do  ?  " 

"  I'm  going  to  see  Mrs.  March,  and  then — " 

"  You  mustn't  do  anything  of  the  kind,  my  dear," 
said  her  father,  gently.  "  You've  no  right  to  give 
yourself  away  to  that  romantic  old  goose."  He  put 
up  his  hand  to  interrupt  her  protest.  "  This  thing 
has  got  to  be  gone  to  the  bottom  of.  But  you're  not 
to  do  it.  I  will  see  March  myself.  We  must  con 
sider  your  dignity  in  this  matter — and  mine.  And 
you  may  as  well  understand  that  I'm  not  going  to 
have  any  nonsense.  It's  got  to  be  managed  so  that 
it  can't  be  supposed  we're  anxious  about  it,  one  way 
or  the  other,  or  that  he  was  authorized  to  write  to  you 
in  this  way — " 

"  No,  no  !  He  oughtn't  to  have  done  so.  He  was 
to  blame.  He  couldn't  have  written  to  you,  though, 
papa !  " 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  why.  But  that's  no  reason 
why  we  should  let  it  be  understood  that  he  has  writ 
ten  to  you.  I  will  see  March ;  and  I  will  manage  to 
see  his  wife,  too.  I  shall  probably  find  them  in  the 
reading-room  at  Pupp's,  and — " 

The  Marches  were  in  fact  just  coming  in  from  their 
breakfast  at  the  Posthof,  and  he  met  them  at  the  door 
of  Pupp's,  where  they  all  sat  down  on  one  of  the  iron 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  273 

settees  of  the  piazza,  and  began  to  ask  one  another 
questions  of  their  minds  about  the  pleasure  of  the  day 
before,  and  to  beat  about  the  bush  where  Burnamy 
lurked  in  their  common  consciousness. 

Mrs.  March  was  not  able  to  keep  long  from  starting 
him.  "You  knew,"  she  said,  "that  Mr.  Burnamy 
had  left  us?" 

"  Left !     Why  ? "  asked  the  general. 

She  was  a  woman  of  resource,  but  in  a  case  like 
this  she  found  it  best  to  trust  her  husband's  poverty 
of  invention.  She  looked  at  him,  and  he  answered 
for  her  with  a  promptness  that  made  her  quake  at 
first,  but  finally  seemed  the  only  thing,  if  not  the  best 
thing:  "He's  had  some  trouble  with  Stoller."  He 
went  on  to  tell  the  general  just  what  the  trouble  was. 

At  the  end  the  general  grunted  as  from  an  uncer 
tain  mind.  "  You  think  he's  behaved  badly." 

"  I  think  he's  behaved  foolishly — youthfully.  But 
I  can  understand  how  strongly  he  was  tempted.  He 
could  say  that  he  was  not  authorized  to  stop  Stoller 
in  his  mad  career." 

At  this  Mrs.  March  put  her  hand  through  her  hus 
band's  arm. 

"  I'm  not  so  sure  about  that,"  said  the  general. 

March  added  :  "  Since  I  saw  him  this  morning,  I've 
heard  something  that  disposes  me  to  look  at  his  per 
formance  in  a  friendlier  light.  It's  something  that 
Stoller  told  me  himself,  to  heighten  my  sense  of  Bur- 
namy's  wickedness.  He  seems  to  have  felt  that  I 
ought  to  know  what  a  serpent  I  was  cherishing  in  my 
bosom,"  and  he  gave  Triscoe  the  facts  of  Burnamy's 


274  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

injurious  refusal  to  help  Stoller  put  a  false  complexion 
on  the  opinions  he  had  allowed  him  ignorantly  to 
express. 

The  general  grunted  again.  "  Of  course  he  had  to 
refuse,  and  he  has  behaved  like  a  gentleman  so  far. 
But  that  doesn't  justify  him  in  having  let  Stoller  get 
himself  into  the  scrape." 

"  No,"  said  March.  "  It's  a  tough  nut  for  the  cas 
uist  to  try  his  tooth  on.  And  I  must  say  I  feel  sorry 
for  Stoller." 

Mrs.  March  plucked  her  hand  from  his  arm.  '*  I 
don't,  one  bit.  He  was  thoroughly  selfish  from  first 
to  last.  He  has  got  just  what  he  deserved." 

"  Ah,  very  likely,"  said  her  husband.  "  The  ques 
tion  is  about  Burnamy's  part  in  giving  him  his  des 
erts  ;  he  had  to  leave  him  to  them,  of  course." 

The  general  fixed  her  with  the  impenetrable  glitter 
of  his  eye-glasses,  and  left  the  subject  as  of  no  con 
cern  to  him.  "  I  believe,"  he  said,  rising,  "  I'll  have 
a  look  at  some  of  your  papers,"  and  he  went  into  the 
reading-room. 

"  Now,"  said  Mrs.  March,  "  he  will  go  home  and 
poison  that  poor  girl's  mind.  And  you  will  have 
yourself  to  thank  for  prejudicing  him  against  Bur- 
namy." 

"  Then  why  didn't  you  do  it  yourself,  my  dear  ? " 
he  teased ;  but  he  was  really  too  sorry  for  the  whole 
affair,  which  he  nevertheless  enjoyed  as  an  ethical 
problem. 

The  general  looked  so  little  at  the  papers  that  be 
fore  March  went  off  for  his  morning  walk  he  saw  him 


THEIR   SILVER  WEDDING   JOURNEY.          275 

come  out  of  the  reading-room  and  take  his  way  down 
the  Alte  Wiese.  He  went  directly  back  to  his  daugh 
ter,  and  reported  Burnamy's  behavior  with  entire  ex 
actness.  He  dwelt  upon  his  making  the  best  of  a 
bad  business  in  refusing  to  help  Stoller  out  of  it,  dis 
honorably  and  mendaciously ;  but  he  did  not  conceal 
that  it  was  a  bad  business. 

"  Now,  you  know  all  about  it,"  he  said  at  the  end, 
"  and  I  leave  the  whole  thing  to  you.  If  you  prefer, 
you  can  see  Mrs.  March.  I  don't  know  but  Fd  rather 
you'd  satisfy  yourself — " 

"  I  will  not  see  Mrs.  March.  Do  you  think  I  would 
go  back  of  you  in  that  way  ?  I  am  satisfied  now." 


XXXIX. 

INSTEAD  of  Burnamy,  Mrs.  Adding  and  her  son  now 
breakfasted  with  the  Marches  at  the  Posthof,  and  the 
boy  was  with  March  throughout  the  day  a  good  deal. 
He  rectified  his  impressions  of  life  in  Carlsbad  by 
March's  greater  wisdom  and  experience,  and  did  his 
best  to  anticipate  his  opinions  and  conform  to  his 
conclusions.  This  was  not  easy,  for  sometimes  he 
could  not  conceal  from  himself  that  March's  opinions 
were  whimsical,  and  his  conclusions  fantastic ;  and  he 
could  not  always  conceal  from  March  that  he  was 
matching  them  with  Kenby's  on  some  points,  and  suf 
fering  from  their  divergence.  He  came  to  join  the 
sage  in  his  early  visit  to  the  springs,  and  they  walked 
up  and  down  talking  ;  and  they  went  off  together  on 
long  strolls  in  which  Rose  was  proud  to  bear  him 
company.  He  was  patient  of  the  absences  from  which 
he  was  often  answered,  and  he  learned  to  distinguish 
between  the  earnest  and  the  irony  of  which  March's 
replies  seemed  to  be  mixed.  He  examined  him  upon 
many  features  of  German  civilization,  but  chiefly  upon 
the  treatment  of  women  in  it;  and  upon  this  his 
philosopher  was  less  satisfactory  than  he  could  have 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  277 

wished  him  to  be.  He  tried  to  excuse  his  trifling  as 
an  escape  from  the  painful  stress  of  questions  which 
he  found  so  afflicting  himself ;  but  in  the  matter  of 
the  woman-and-dog  teams,  this  was  not  easy.  March 
owned  that  the  notion  of  their  being  yokemates  was 
shocking ;  but  he  urged  that  it  was  a  stage  of  evolu 
tion,  and  a  distinct  advance  upon  the  time  when  wom 
en  dragged  the  carts  without  the  help  of  the  dogs; 
and  that  the  time  might  not  be  far  distant  when  the 
dogs  would  drag  the  carts  without  the  help  of  the 
women. 

Rose  surmised  a  joke,  and  he  tried  to  enjoy  it,  but 
inwardly  he  was  troubled  by  his  friend's  apparent  | 
acceptance  of  unjust  things  on  their  picturesque  side. 
Once  as  they  were  sauntering  homeward  by  the  brink 
of  the  turbid  Eger,  they  came  to  a  man  lying  on  the 
grass  with  a  pipe  in  his  mouth,  and  lazily  watching 
from  under  his  fallen  lids  the  cows  grazing  by  the 
river-side,  while  in  a  field  of  scraggy  wheat  a  file  of 
women  were  reaping  a  belated  harvest  with  sickles, 
bending  wearily  over  to  clutch  the  stems  together  and 
cut  them  with  their  hooked  blades.  "  Ah,  delight 
ful  ! "  March  took  off  his  hat  as  if  to  salute  the 
pleasant  sight. 

"  But  don't  you  think,  Mr.  March,"  the  boy  vent 
ured,  "  that  the  man  had  better  be  cutting  the  wheat, 
and  letting  the  women  watch  the  cows  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  don't  know.  There  are  more  of  them ; 
and  he  wouldn't  be  half  so  graceful  as  they  are,  with 
that  flow  of  their  garments,  and  the  sway  of  their 
aching  backs."  The  boy  smiled  sadly,  and  March 


278  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

put  his  hand  on  his  shoulder  as  they  walked  on. 
"  You  find  a  lot  of  things  in  Europe  that  need  putting 
right,  don't  you,  Rose  ? " 

"Yes;  I  know  it's  silly." 

"  Well,  I'm  not  sure.  But  I'm  afraid  it's  useless. 
You  see,  these  old  customs  go  such  a  way  back,  and 
are  so  grounded  in  conditions.  We  think  they  might 
be  changed,  if  those  who  rule  could  be  got  to  see  how 
cruel  and  ugly  they  are ;  but  probably  they  couldn't. 
I'm  afraid  that  the  Emperor  of  Austria  himself 
couldn't  change  them,  in  his  sovereign  plenitude  of 
power.  The  Emperor  is  only  an  old  custom  too,  and 
he's  as  much  grounded  in  the  conditions  as  any." 
This  was  the  serious  way  Rose  felt  that  March  ought 
always  to  talk ;  and  he  was  too  much  grieved  to  laugh 
when  he  went  on.  "  The  women  have  so  much  of  the 
hard  work  to  do,  over  here,  because  the  emperors  need 
the  men  for  their  armies.  They  couldn't  let  their  men 
cut  wheat  unless  it  was  for  their  officers'  horses,  in 
the  field  of  some  peasant  whom  it  would  ruin." 

If  Mrs.  March  was  by  she  would  not  allow  him  to 
work  these  paradoxes  for  the  boy's  confusion.  She 
said  the  child  adored  him,  and  it  was  a  sacrilege  to 
play  with  his  veneration.  She  always  interfered  to 
save  him,  but  with  so  little  logic  though  so  much  jus 
tice  that  Rose  suffered  a  humiliation  from  her  cham 
pionship,  and  was  obliged  from  a  sense  of  self-respect 
to  side  with  the  mocker.  She  understood  this,  and 
magnanimously  urged  it  as  another  reason  why  her 
husband  should  not  trifle  with  Rose's  ideal  of  him ; 
to  make  his  mother  laugh  at  him  was  wicked. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  279 

"Oh,  I'm  not  his  only  ideal,"  March  protested. 
"  He  adores  Kenby  too,  and  every  now  and  then  he 
brings  me  to  book  with  a  text  from  Kenby's  gospel." 

Mrs.  March  caught  her  breath.  "  Kenby  !  Do  you 
really  think,  then,  that  she — " 

"  Oh,  hold  on,  now  !  It  isn't  a  question  of  Mrs. 
Adding ;  and  I  don't  say  Rose  has  an  eye  on  poor  old 
Kenby  as  a  step-father.  I  merely  want  you  to  under 
stand  that  I'm  the  object  of  a  divided  worship,  and 
that  when  I'm  off  duty  as  an  ideal  I  don't  see  why  I 
shouldn't  have  the  fun  of  making  Mrs.  Adding  laugh. 
You  can't  pretend  she  isn't  wrapped  up  in  the  boy. 
You've  said  that  yourself." 

"  Yes,  she's  wrapped  up  in  him  ;  she'd  give  her  life 
for  him ;  but  she  is  so  light.  I  didn't  suppose  she 
was  so  light ;  but  it's  borne  in  upon  me  more  and 
more." 

They  were  constantly  seeing  Rose  and  his  mother, 
in  the  sort  of  abeyance  the  Triscoes  had  fallen  into. 
One  afternoon  the  Addings  came  to  Mrs.  March's 
room  to  look  from  her  windows  at  a  parade  of  bicy 
clers'  clubs  from  the  neighboring  towns.  The  spec 
tacle  prospered  through  its  first  half-hour,  with  the 
charm  which  German  sentiment  and  ingenuity  are 
able  to  lend  even  a  bicycle  parade.  The  wheelmen 
and  wheelwomen  filed  by  on  machines  wreathed  with 
flowers  and  ribbons,  and  decked  with  streaming  ban 
ners.  Here  and  there  one  sat  under  a  moving  arch 
of  blossoms,  or  in  a  bower  of  leaves  and  petals,  and 
they  were  all  gay  with  their  club  costumes  and  insig 
nia.  In  the  height  of  the  display  a  sudden  mountain 


280          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

shower  gathered  and  broke  upon  them.  They  braved 
it  till  it  became  a  drenching  down-pour ;  then  they 
leaped  from  their  machines  and  fled  to  any  shelter 
they  could  find,  under  trees  and  in  doorways.  The 
men  used  their  greater  agility  to  get  the  best  places, 
and  kept  them ;  the  women  made  no  appeal  for  them 
by  word  or  look,  but  took  the  rain  in  the  open  as  if 
they  expected  nothing  else. 

Rose  watched  the  scene  with  a  silent  intensity 
which  March  interpreted.  "  There's  your  chance, 
Rose.  Why  don't  you  go  down  and  rebuke  those 
fellows?" 

Rose  blushed  and  shrank  away  without  answer,  and 
Mrs.  March  promptly  attacked  her  husband  in  his  be 
half.  "  Why  don't  you  go  and  rebuke  them  yourself  ? " 

"  Well,  for  one  thing,  there  isn't  any  conversation 
in  my  phrase-book  Between  an  indignant  American 
Herr  and  a  Party  of  German  Wheelmen  who  have 
taken  Shelter  from  the  Rain  and  are  keeping  the 
Wheelwomen  out  in  the  Wet."  Mrs.  Adding  shrieked 
her  delight,  an-d  he  was  flattered  into  going  on.  "  For 
another  thing,  I  think  it's  very  well  for  you  ladies  to 
realize  from  an  object-lesson  of  this  sort  what  spoiled 
children  of  our  civilization  you  are.  It  ought  to  make 
you  grateful  for  your  privileges." 

"  There  is  something  in  that,"  Mrs.  Adding  joyfully 
consented. 

"  Oh,  there  is  no  civilization  but  ours,"  said  Mrs. 
March,  in  a  burst  of  vindictive  patriotism.  "  I  am 
more  and  more  convinced  of  it  the  longer  I  stay  in 
Europe." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  281 

"Perhaps  that's  why  we  like  to  stay  so  long  in 
Europe ;  it  strengthens  us  in  the  conviction  that  Amer 
ica  is  the  only  civilized  country  in  the  world,"  said 
March. 

The  shower  passed  as  quickly  as  it  had  gathered, 
and  the  band  which  it  had  silenced  for  a  moment 
burst  forth  again  in  the  music  which  fills  the  Carlsbad 
day  from  dawn  till  dusk.  Just  now,  it  began  to  play 
a  pot-pourri  of  American  airs ;  at  the  end  some  unseen 
Americans  under  the  trees  below  clapped  and  cheered. 

"That  was  opportune  of  the  band,"  said  March. 
"  It  must  have  been  a  telepathic  impulse  from  our 
patriotism  in  the  director.  But  a  pot-pourri  of  Amer 
ican  airs  is  like  that  tablet  dedicating  the  American 
Park  up  here  on  the  Schlossberg,  which  is  signed  by 
six  Jews  and  one  Irishman.  The  only  thing  in  this 
medley  that's  the  least  characteristic  or  original  is 
'  Dixie' ;  and  I'm  glad  the  South  has  brought  us  back 
into  the  Union." 

"  You  don't  know  one  note  from  another,  my  dear," 
said  his  wife. 

"  I  know  the  '  Washington  Post.'  " 

"  And  don't  you  call  that  American  ? " 

"  Yes,  if  Sousa  is  an  American  name ;  I  should  have 
thought  it  was  Portuguese." 

"  Now  that  sounds  a  little  too  much  like  General 
Triscoe's  pessimism,"  said  Mrs.  March;  and  she  add 
ed  :  "  But  whether  we  have  any  national  melodies  or 
not,  we  don't  poke  women  out  in  the  rain  and  keep 
them  soaking  !  " 

"  No,  we  certainly  don't,"  he  assented,  with  such  a 


282  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

well-studied  effect  of  yielding  to  superior  logic  that 
Mrs.  Adding  screamed  for  joy. 

The  boy  had  stolen  out  of  the  room,  and  he  said, 
"  I  hope  Rose  isn't  acting  on  my  suggestion  ?  " 

"  I  hate  to  have  you  tease  him,  dearest,"  his  wife 
interposed. 

"  Oh,  no,"  the  mother  said,  laughing  still,  but  with 
a  note  of  tenderness  in  her  laugh,  which  dropped  at 
last  to  a  sigh.  "  He's  too  much  afraid  of  lese-majesty, 
for  that.  But  I  dare  say  he  couldn't  stand  the  sight. 
He's  queer." 

"  He's  beautiful !  "  said  Mrs.  March. 

"  He's  good,"  the  mother  admitted.  "  As  good  as 
the  day's  long.  He's  never  given  me  a  moment's 
trouble — but  he  troubles  me.  If  you  can  under 
stand  ! " 

"  Oh,  I  do  understand ! "  Mrs.  March  returned. 
"  By  his  innocence,  you  mean.  That  is  the  worst  of 
children.  Their  innocence  breaks  our  hearts  and 
makes  us  feel  ourselves  such  dreadful  old  things." 

"  His  innocence,  yes,"  pursued  Mrs.  Adding,  "  and 
his  ideals."  She  began  to  laugh  again.  "  He  may 
have  gone  off  for  a  season  of  meditation  and  prayer 
over  the  misbehavior  of  these  bicyclers.  His  mind  is 
turning  that  way  a  good  deal  lately.  It's  only  fair  to 
tell  you,  Mr.  March,  that  he  seems  to  be  giving  up  his 
notion  of  being  arf  editor.  You  mustn't  be  disap 
pointed." 

"  I  shall  be  sorry,"  said  the  editor.  "  But  now 
that  you  mention  it,  I  think  I  have  noticed  that  Rose 
seems  rather  more  indifferent  to  periodical  literature. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  283 

I  supposed  he  might  simply  have  exhausted  his  ques 
tions — or  my  answers." 

"  No ;  it  goes  deeper  than  that.  I  think  it's  Europe 
that's  turned  his  mind  in  the  direction  of  reform.  At 
any  rate  he  thinks  now  he  will  be  a  reformer." 

"Really!  What  kind  of  one?  Not  religious,  I 
hope?" 

"No.  His  reform  has  a  religious  basis,  but  its 
objects  are  social.  I  don't  make  it  out,  exactly ;  but 
I  shall,  as  soon  as  Rose  does.  He  tells  me  everything, 
and  sometimes  I  don't  feel  equal  to  it,  spiritually  or 
even  intellectually." 

"  Don't  laugh  at  him,  Mrs.  Adding ! "  Mrs.  March 
entreated. 

"  Oh,  he  doesn't  mind  my  laughing,"  said  the 
mother,  gayly.  Rose  came  shyly  back  into  the  room, 
and  she  said,  "  Well,  did  you  rebuke  those  bad  bicy 
clers  ? "  and  she  laughed  again. 

"  They're  only  a  custom,  too,  Rose,"  said  March, 
tenderly.  "  Like  the  man  resting  while  the  women 
worked,  and  the  Emperor,  and  all  the  rest  of  it." 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  know,"  the  boy  returned. 

"  They  ride  modern  machines,  but  they  live  in  the 
tenth  century.  That's  what  we're  always  forgetting 
when  we  come  to  Europe  and  see  these  .barbarians 
enjoying  all  our  up-to-date  improvements." 

"  There,  doesn't  that  console*  you  ? "  asked  his 
mother,  and  she  took  him  away  with  her,  laughing 
back  from  the  door.  "  I  don't  believe  it  does,  a  bit !  " 

"  I  don't  believe  she  understands  the  child,"  said 
Mrs.  March.  "  She  is  very  light,  don't  you  think  ?  I 


284          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

don't  know,  after  all,  whether  it  wouldn't  be  a  good 
thing  for  her  to  marry  Kenby.  She  is  very  easy-go 
ing,  and  she  will  be  sure  to  marry  somebody." 

She  had  fallen  into  a  tone  of  musing  censure,  and 
he  said,  "  You  might  put  these  ideas  to  her." 


XL. 

WITH  the  passage  of  the  days  and  weeks,  the 
strange  faces  which  had  familiarized  themselves  at  the 
springs  disappeared ;  even  some  of  those  which  had 
become  the  faces  of  acquaintance  began  to  go.  In 
the  diminishing  crowd  the  smile  of  Otterson  was  no 
longer  to  be  seen;  the  sad,  severe  visage  of  Major 
Eltwin,  who  seemed  never  to  have  quite  got  his  bear 
ings  after  his  error  with  General  Triscoe,  seldom 
showed  itself.  The  Triscoes  themselves  kept  out  of 
the  Marches'  way,  or  they  fancied  so;  Mrs.  Adding 
and  Rose  alone  remained  of  their  daily  encounter. 

It  was  full  summer,  as  it  is  everywhere  in  mid- 
August,  but  at  Carlsbad  the  sun  was  so  late  getting 
up  over  the  hills  that  as  people  went  to  their  break 
fasts  at  the  cafes  up  the  valley  of  the  Tepl  they  found 
him  looking  very  obliquely  into  it  at  eight  o'clock  in 
the  morning.  The  yellow  leaves  were  thicker  about 
the  feet  of  the  trees,  and  the  grass  was  silvery  gray 
with  the  belated  dews.  The  breakfasters  were  fewer 
than  they  had  been,  and  there  were  more  little  bare 
footed  boys  and  girls  with  cups  of  red  raspberries 
which  they  offered  to  the  passers  with  cries  of  "  Him- 


286  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

beeren  !  Himbeeren  !  "  plaintive  as  the  notes  of  birds 
left  songless  by  the  receding  summer. 

March  was  forbidden  the  fruit,  but  his  wife  and 
Mrs.  Adding  bought  recklessly  of  it,  and  ate  it  under 
his  eyes  with  their  coffee  and  bread,  pouring  over  it 
pots  of  clotted  cream  that  the  schone  Lili  brought 
them.  Rose  pretended  an  indifference  to  it,  which 
his  mother  betrayed  was  a  sacrifice  in  behalf  of 
March's  inability. 

Lili's  delays  in  coming  to  be  paid  had  been  such 
that  the  Marches  now  tried  to  pay  her  when  she 
brought  their  breakfast,  but  they  sometimes  forgot, 
and  then  they  caught  her  whenever  she  came  near 
them.  In  this  event  she  liked  to  coquet  with  their 
impatience ;  she  would  lean  against  their  table,  and 
say :  "  Oh,  no.  You  stay  a  little.  It  is  so  m'ee."  One 
day  after  such  an  entreaty,  she  said,  "  The  queen  is 
here,  this  morning." 

Mrs.  March  started,  in  the  hope  of  highhotes. 
"  The  queen !  " 

"  Yes ;  the  young  lady.  Mr.  Burnamy  was  saying 
she  was  a  queen.  She  is  there  with  her  father." 
She  nodded  in  the  direction  of  a  distant  corner,  and 
the  Marches  knew  that  she  meant  Miss  Triscoe  and 
the  general.  "  She  is  not  seeming  so  gayly  as  she 
was  being." 

March  smiled.  "  We  are  none  of  us  so  gayly  as 
we  were  being,  Lili.  The  summer  is  going." 

"  But  Mr.  Burnamy  will  be  returning,  not  true  ? " 
the  girl  asked,  resting  her  tray  on  the  corner  of  the 
table. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  287 

"  No,  I'm  afraid  he  won't,"  March  returned  sadly. 

"  He  was  very  good.  He  was  paying  the  proprietor 
for  the  dishes  that  Augusta  did  break  when  she  was 
falling  down.  He  was  paying  before  he  went  away, 
when  he  was  knowing  that  the  proprietor  would  make 
Augusta  to  pay." 

"Ah!"  said  March,  and  his  wife  said,  "That  was 
like  him ! "  and  she  eagerly  explained  to  Mrs.  Adding 
how  good  and  great  Burnamy  had  been  in  this  char 
acteristic  instance,  while  Lili  waited  with  the  tray  to 
add  some  pathetic  facts  about  Augusta's  poverty  and 
gratitude.  "  /  think  Miss  Triscoe  ought  to  know  it. 
There  goes  the  wretch,  now  !  "  she  broke  off.  "  Don't 
look  at  him  !  "  She  set  her  husband  the  example  of 
averting  his  face  from  the  sight  of  Stoller  sullenly 
pacing  up  the  middle  aisle  of  the  grove,  and  looking 
to  the  right  and  left  for  a  vacant  table.  "  Ugh  !  I 
hope  he  won't  be  able  to  find  a  single  place." 

Mrs.  Adding  gave  one  of  her  pealing  laughs,  while 
Rose  watched  March's  face  with  grave  sympathy. 
"  He  certainly  doesn't  deserve  one.  Don't  let  us  keep 
you  from  offering  Miss  Triscoe  any  consolation  you 
can."  They  got  up,  and  the  boy  gathered  up  the 
gloves,  umbrella,  and  handkerchief  which  the  ladies 
let  drop  from  their  laps. 

"  Have  you  been  telling  ? "  March  asked  his  wife. 

"  Have  I  told  you  anything  ? "  she  demanded  of 
Mrs.  Adding  in  turn.  "  Anything  that  you  didn't  as 
good  as  know,  already  ?  " 

"  Not  a  syllable ! "  Mrs.  Adding  replied  in  high 
delight.  «  Come,  Rose !  " 


288  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  Well,  I  suppose  there's  no  use  saying  anything," 
said  March,  after  she  left  them. 

"  She  had  guessed  everything,  without  my  telling 
her,"  said  his  wife. 

"About  Stoller?" 

"  Well — no.  I  did  tell  her  that  part,  but  that  was 
nothing.  It  was  about  Burnamy  and  Agatha  that  she 
knew.  She  saw  it  from  the  first." 

"  I  should  have  thought  she  would  have  enough  to 
do  to  look  after  poor  old  Kenby." 

"  I'm  not  sure,  after  all,  that  she  cares  for  him.  If 
she  doesn't,  she  oughtn't  to  let  him  write  to  her. 
Aren't  you  going  over  to  speak  to  the  Triscoes  ? " 

"  No,  certainly  not.  I'm  going  back  to  the  hotel. 
There  ought  to  be  some  steamer  letters  this  morning. 
Here  we  are,  worrying  about  these  strangers  all  the 
time,  and  we  never  give  a  thought  to  our  own  child 
ren  on  the  other  side  of  the  ocean." 

"  /worry  about  them,  too,"  said  the  mother,  fondly. 
"  Though  there  is  nothing  to  worry  about,"  she  added. 

"  It's  our  duty  to  worry,"  he  insisted. 

At  the  hotel  the  portier  gave  them  four  letters. 
There  was  or»e  from  each  of  their  children :  one  very 
buoyant,  not  to  say  boisterous,  from  the  daughter, 
celebrating  her  happiness  in  her  husband,  and  the 
loveliness  of  Chicago  as  a  summer  city  ("You  would 
think  she  was  born  out  there !  "  sighed  her  mother) ; 
anjd  one  from  the  son,  boasting  his  well-being  in  spite 
of  the  heat  they  were  having  ("  And  just  think  how 
cool  it  is  here  !  "  his  mother  upbraided  herself),  and 
the  prosperity  of  Every  Other  Week.  There  was  a 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  289 

line  from  Fulkerson,  praising  the  boy's  editorial  in 
stinct,  and  ironically  proposing  March's  resignation  in 
his  favor. 

"  I  do  believe  we  could  stay  all  winter,  just  as  well 
as  not,"  said  Mrs.  March,  proudly.  "  What  does 
Burnamy  say  ? " 

"  How  do  you  know  it's  from  him  ?  " 

"  Because  you've  been  keeping  your  hand  on  it 
Give  it  here." 

"  When  I've  read  it." 

The  letter  was  dated  at  Ansbach,  in  Germany,  and 
dealt,  except  for  some  messages  of  affection  to  Mrs. 
March,  with  a  scheme  for  a  paper  which  Burnamy 
wished  to  write  on  Kaspar  Hauser,  if  March  thought 
he  could  use  it  in  Every  Other  Week.  He  had  come 
upon  a  book  about  that  hapless  foundling  in  Nurem 
berg,  and  after  looking  up  all  his  traces  there  he  had 
gone  on  to  Ansbach,  where  Kaspar  Hauser  met  his 
death  so  pathetically.  Burnamy  said  he  could  not 
give  any  notion  of  the  enchantment  of  Nuremberg; 
but  he  besought  March,  if  he  was  going  to  the  Tyrol 
for  his  after-cure,  not  to  fail  staying  a  day  or  so  in 
the  wonderful  place.  He  thought  March  would  enjoy 
Ansbach  too,  in  its  way. 

"  And,  not  a  word — not  a  syllable — about  Miss 
Triscoe  ! "  cried  Mrs.  March.  "  Shall  you  take  his 
paper?" 

"  It  would  be  serving  him  right,  if  I  refused  it, 
wouldn't  it  ?  " 

They  never  knew  what  it  cost  Burnamy  to  keep  her 
name  out  of  his  letter,  or  by  what  an  effort  of  the 
S 


290          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

will  he  forbade  himself  even  to  tell  of  his  parting 
interview  with  Stoller.  He  had  recovered  from  his 
remorse  for  letting  Stoller  give  himself  away ;  he  was 
still  sorry  for  that,  but  he  no  longer  suffered;  yet 
he  had  not  reached  the  psychological  moment  when 
he  could  celebrate  his  final  virtue  in  the  matter.  He 
was  glad  he  had  been  able  to  hold  out  against  the 
temptation  to  retrieve  himself  by  another  wrong;  but 
he  was  humbly  glad,  and  he  felt  that  until  happier 
chance  brought  him  and  his  friends  together  he  must 
leave  them  to  their  merciful  conjectures.  He  was 
young,  and  he  took  the  chance,  with  an  aching  heart. 
If  he  had  been  older,  he  might  not  have  taken  it. 


XLI. 

THE  birthday  of  the  Emperor  comes  conveniently, 
in  late  August,  in  the  good  weather  which  is  pretty 
sure  to  fall  then,  if  ever  in  the  Austrian  summer. 
For  a  week  past,  at  Carlsbad,  the  workmen  had  been 
building  a  scaffolding  for  the  illumination  in  the 
woods  on  a  height  overlooking  the  town,  and  making 
unobirusive  preparations  at  points  within  it. 

The  day  was  important  as  the  last  of  March's  cure, 
and  its  pleasures  began  for  him  by  a  renewal  of  his 
acquaintance  in  its  first  kindliness  with  the  Eltwins. 
He  had  met  them  so  seldom  that  at  one  time  he 
thought  they  must  have  gone  away,  but  now  after  his 
first  cup  he  saw  the  quiet,  sad  old  pair,  sitting  together 
on  a  bench  in  the  Stadt  Park,  and  he  asked  leave  to 
sit  down  with  them  till  it  was  time  for  the  next.  Elt- 
win  said  that  this  was  their  last  day,  too;  and  ex 
plained  that  his  wife  always  came  with  him  to  the 
springs,  while  he  took  the  waters. 

"  Well,"  he  apologized,  "  we're  all  that's  left,  and 
I  suppose  we  like  to  keep  together."  He  paused,  and 
at  the  look  in  March's  face  he  suddenly  went  on.  "  I 


292  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

haven't  been  well  for  three  or  four  years;  but  I  always 
fought  against  coming  out  here,  when  the  doctors 
wanted  me  to.  I  said  I  couldn't  leave  home  ;  and  I 
don't  suppose  I  ever  should.  But  my  home  left  me." 

As  he  spoke  his  wife  shrank  tenderly  near  him,  and 
March  saw  her  steal  her  withered  hand  into  his. 

"  We'd  had  a  large  family,  but  they'd  all  died  off, 
with  one  thing  or  another,  and  here  in  the  spring  we 
lost  our  last  daughter.  Seemed  perfectly  well,  and 
all  at  once  she  died;  heart- failure,  they  called  it.  It 
broke  me  up,  and  mother,  here,  got  at  me  to  go.  And 
so  we're  here."  His  voice  trembled ;  and  his  eyes 
softened ;  then  they  flashed  up,  and  March  heard  him 
add,  in  a  tone  that  astonished  him  less  when  he  looked 
round  and  saw  General  Triscoe  advancing  toward 
them,  "  I  don't  know  what  it  is  always  makes  me  want 
to  kick  that  man." 

The  general  lifted  his  hat  to  their  group,  and  hoped 
that  Mrs.  Eltwin  was  well,  and  Major  Eltwin  better. 
lie  did  not  notice  their  replies,  but  said  to  March, 
"  The  ladies  are  waiting  for  you  in  Pupp's  reading- 
room,  to  go  with  them  to  the  Posthof  for  breakfast." 

"  Aren't  you  going,  too  ? "  asked  March. 

"  No,  thank  you,"  said  the  general,  as  if  it  were 
much  finer  not ;  "  I  shall  breakfast  at  our  pension." 
He  strolled  off  with  the  air  of  a  man  who  has  done 
more  than  his  duty. 

"  I  don't  suppose  I  ought  to  feel  that  way,"  said 
Eltwin,  with  a  remorse  which  March  suspected  a  re 
proachful  pressure  of  his  wife's  hand  had  prompted 
in  him.  "  I  reckon  he  means  well." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  293 

"  Well,  I  don't  know,"  March  said,  with  a  candor 
he  could  not  wholly  excuse. 

On  his  way  to  the  hotel  he  fancied  mocking  his 
wife  for  her  interest  in  the  romantic  woes  of  her  lov 
ers,  in  a  world  where  there  was  such  real  pathos  as 
these  poor  old  people's ;  but  in  the  company  of  Miss 
Triscoe  he  could  not  give  himself  this  pleasure.  He 
tried  to  amuse  her  on  the  way  from  Pupp's,  with  the 
doubt  he  always  felt  in  passing  the  Cafe  Sans-Souci, 
whether  he  should  live  to  reach  the  Posthof  where  he 
meant  to  breakfast.  She  said,  "  Poor  Mr.  March  !  " 
and  laughed  inattentively ;  when  he  went  on  to  philos 
ophize  the  commonness  of  the  sparse  company  always 
observable  at  the  Sans-Souci  as  a  just  effect  of  its 
Laodicean  situation  between  Pupp's  and  the  Posthof, 
the  girl  sighed  absently,  and  his  wife  frowned  at  him. 

The  flower-woman  at  the  gate  of  her  garden  had 
now  only  autumnal  blooms  for  sale  in  the  vases  which 
flanked  the  entrance ;  the  windrows  of  the  rowen,  left 
steeping  in  the  dews  overnight,  exhaled  a  faint  fra 
grance;  a  poor  remnant  of  the  midsummer  multitudes 
trailed  itself  along  to  the  various  cafes  of  the  valley, 
its  pink  paper  bags  of  bread  rustling  like  sere  foliage 
as  it  moved. 

At  the  Posthof  the  schone  Lili  alone  was  as  gay  as 
in  the  prime  of  July.  She  played  archly  about  the 
guests  she  welcomed  to  a  table  in  a  sunny  spot  in  the 
gallery.  "  You  are  tired  of  Carlsbad  ? "  she  said 
caressingly  to  Miss  Triscoe,  as  she  put  her  breakfast 
before  her. 

"  Not  of  the  Posthof,"  said  the  girl,  listlessly. 


294          THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

"  Posthof,  and  very  little  Lili  ? "  She  showed,  with 
one  forefinger  on  another,  how  very  little  she  was. 

Miss  Triscoe  laughed,  not  cheerily,  and  Lili  said  to 
Mrs.  March,  with  abrupt  seriousness,  "  Augusta  was 
finding  a  handkerchief  under  the  table,  and  she  was 
washing  it  and  ironing  it  before  she  did  bring  it.  I 
have  scolded  her,  and  I  have  made  her  give  it  to  me." 

She  took  from  under  her  apron  a  man's  handker 
chief,  which  she  offered  to  Mrs.  March.  It  bore,  as 
she  saw  Miss  Triscoe  saw,  the  initials  L.  J.  B.  But, 
"  Whose  can  it  be  ? "  they  asked  each  other. 

"  Why,  Burnamy's,"  said  March,  and  Lili's  eyes 
danced.  "  Give  it  here  !  " 

His  wife  caught  it  farther  away.  "  No,  I'm  going 
to  see  whose  it  is,  first;  if  it's  his,  I'll  send  it  to  him 
myself." 

She  tried  to  put  it  into  the  pocket  which  was  not 
in  her  dress  by  sliding  it  down  her  lap;  then  she 
handed  it  to  the  girl,  who  took  it  with  a  careless  air, 
but  kept  it  after  a  like  failure  to  pocket  it. 

Mrs.  March  had  come  out  in  her  India-rubber  san 
dals,  but  for  once  in  Carlsbad  the  weather  was  too 
dry  for  them,  and  she  had  taken  them  off  and  was 
holding  them  in  her  lap.  They  fell  to  the  ground 
when  she  now  rose  from  breakfast,  and  she  stooped 
to  pick  them  up.  Miss  Triscoe  was  too  quick  for  her. 

"  Oh,  let  me  carry  them  for  you  !  "  she  entreated, 
and  after  a  tender  struggle  she  succeed  in  enslaving 
herself  to  them,  and  went  away  wearing  them  through 
the  heel-bands  like  manacles  on  her  wrist.  She  was 
not  the  kind  of  girl  to  offer  such  pretty  devotions,  and 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  295 

Mrs.  March  was  not  the  kind  of  woman  to  suffer  them ; 
but  they  played  the  comedy  through,  and  let  March 
go  off  for  his  last  hill-climb  with  the  promise  to  meet 
him  in  the  Stadt  Park  when  he  came  to  the  Kurhaus 
for  his  last  mineral  bath. 

Mrs.  March  in  the  mean  time  went  about  some  final 
shopping,  and  invited  the  girl's  advice  with  a  fond 
ness  which  did  not  prevent  her  rejecting  it  in  every 
case,  with  Miss  Triscoc's  eager  approval.  In  the 
Stadt  Park  they  sat  down  and  talked ;  from  time  to 
time  Mrs.  March  made  polite  feints  of  recovering  her 
sandals,  but  the  girl  kept  them  with  increased  effusion. 

When  they  rose,  and  strolled  away  from  the  bench 
where  they  had  been  sitting,  they  seemed  to  be  fol 
lowed.  They  looked  round  and  saw  no  one  more 
alarming  than  a  very  severe-looking  old  gentleman, 
whose  hat  brim  in  spite  of  his  severity  was  limp  with 
much  lifting,  as  all  Austrian  hat  brims  are.  He 
touched  it,  and  saying  haughtily  in  German,  "  Some 
thing  left  lying,"  passed  on. 

They  stared  at  each  other ;  then,  as  women  do,  they 
glanced  down  at  their  skirts  to  see  if  there  was  any 
thing  amiss  with  them,  and  Miss  Triscoe  perceived 
her  hands  empty  of  Mrs.  March's  sandals  and  of  Bur- 
namy's  handkerchief. 

"  Oh,  I  put  it  in  one  of  the  toes !  "  she  lamented, 
and  she  fled  back  to  their  bench,  alarming  in  her 
course  the  fears  of  a  gendarme  for  the  public  security, 
and  putting  a  baby  in  its  nurse's  arms  into  such 
doubts  of  its  personal  safety  that  it  burst  into  a  des 
olate  cry.  She  laughed  breathlessly  as  she  rejoined 


296  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

Mrs.  March.  "  That  comes  of  having  no  pocket ;  T 
didn't  suppose  I  could  forget  your  sandals,  Mrs. 
March  !  Wasn't  it  absurd  ?  " 

"  It's  one  of  those  things,"  Mrs.  March  said  to  her 
husband  afterwards,  "  that  they  can  always  laugh  over 
together." 

"  They  ?  And  what  about  Burnamy's  behavior  to 
Stoller?" 

"  Oh,  I  don't  call  that  anything  but  what  will  come 
right.  Of  course  he  can  make  it  up  to  him  somehow. 
And  I  regard  his  refusal  to  do  wrong  when  Stoller 
wanted  him  to  as  quite  wiping  out  the  first  offence.' 

"  Well,  my  dear,  you  have  burnt  your  ships  behind 
you.  My  only  hope  is  that  when  we  leave  here  to 
morrow,  her  pessimistic  papa's  poison  will  neutralize 
yours  somehow." 


XLIL 

ONE  of  the  pleasantest  incidents  of  March's  sojourn 
in  Carlsbad  was  his  introduction  to  the  manager  of  the 
municipal  theatre  by  a  common  friend  who  explained 
the  editor  in  such  terms  to  the  manager  that  he  con 
ceived  of  him  as  a  brother  artist.  This  led  to  much 
bowing  and  smiling  from  the  manager  when  the 
Marches  met  him  in  the  street,  or  in  their  frequent 
visits  to  the  theatre,  with  which  March  felt  that  it 
might  well  have  ended,  and  still  been  far  beyond  his 
desert.  He  had  not  thought  of  going  to  the  opera 
on  the  Emperor's  birthnight,  but  after  dinner  a  box 
came  from  the  manager,  and  Mrs.  March  agreed  with 
him  that  they  could  not  in  decency  accept  so  great  a 
favor.  At  the  same  time  she  argued  that  they  could 
not  in  decency  refuse  it,  and  that  to  show  their  sense 
of  the  pleasure  done  them,  they  must  adorn  their  box 
with  all  the  beauty  and  distinction  possible ;  in  other 
words,  she  said  they  must  ask  Miss  Triscoe  and  her 
father. 

"  And  why  not  Major  Eltwin  and  his  wife  ?  Or 
Mrs.  Adding  and  Rose  ?  " 


298          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

She  begged  him,  simply  in  his  own  interest,  not  to 
be  foolish ;  and  they  went  early,  so  as  to  be  in  their 
box  when  their  guests  came.  The  foyer  of  the  theatre 
was  banked  with  flowers,  and  against  a  curtain  of 
evergreens  stood  a  high-pedestalled  bust  of  the  pater 
nal  Caesar,  with  whose  side-whiskers  a  laurel  crown 
comported  itself  as  well  as  it  could.  At  the  foot  of 
the  grand  staircase  leading  to  the  boxes  the  manager 
stood  in  evening  dress,  receiving  his  friends  and  their 
felicitations  upon  the  honor  which  the  theatre  was 
sure  to  do  itself  on  an  occasion  so  august.  The 
Marches  were  so  cordial  in  their  prophecies  that  the 
manager  yielded  to  an  artist's  impulse  and  begged  his 
fellow-artist  to  do  him  the  pleasure  of  coming  behind 
the  scenes  between  the  acts  of  the  opera ;  he  bowed  a 
heart-felt  regret  to  Mrs.  March  that  he  could  not  make 
the  invitation  include  her,  and  hoped  that  she  would 
not  be  too  lonely  while  her  husband  was  gone. 

She  explained  that  they  had  asked  friends,  and  she 
should  not  be  alone,  and  then  he  entreated  March  to 
bring  any  gentleman  who  was  his  guest  with  him. 
On  the  way  up  to  their  box,  she  pressed  his  arm  as 
she  used  in  their  young  married  days,  and  asked  him 
if  it  was  not  perfect.  "  I  wish  we  were  going  to  have 
it  all  to  ourselves ;  no  one  else  can  appreciate  the 
whole  situation.  Do  you  think  we  have  made  a  mis 
take  in  having  the  Triscoes  ?  " 

"  He/"  he  retorted.  "  Oh,  that's  good  !  I'm  go 
ing  to  shirk  him,  when  it  comes  to  going  behind  the 
scenes." 

"  No,  no,  dearest,"  she  entreated.     "  Shabbing  will 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  299 

only  make  it  worse.  We  must  stand  it  to  the  bitter 
end,  now." 

The  curtain  rose  upon  another  laurelled  bust  of  the 
Emperor,  with  a  chorus  of  men  formed  on  either  side, 
who  broke  into  the  grave  and  noble  strains  of  the 
Austrian  Hymn,  while  every  one  stood.  Then  the 
curtain  fell  again,  and  in  the  interval  before  the  opera 
could  begin,  General  Triscoe  and  his  daughter  came 
in. 

Mrs.  March  took  the  splendor  in  which  the  girl 
appeared  as  a  tribute  to  her  hospitality.  She  had 
hitherto  been  a  little  disappointed  of  the  open  homage 
to  American  girlhood  which  her  reading  of  interna 
tional  romance  had  taught  her  to  expect  in  Europe, 
but  now  her  patriotic  vanity  feasted  full.  Fat  high- 
hotes  of  her  own  sex  levelled  their  lorgnettes  at  Miss 
Triscoe  all  around  the  horseshoe,  with  critical  glances 
which  fell  blunted  from  her  complexion  and  costume ; 
the  house  was  brilliant  with  the  military  uniforms 
which  we  have  not;  yet  to  mingle  with  our  unrivalled 
millinery,  and  the  ardent  gaze  of  the  young  officers 
dwelt  on  the  perfect  mould  of  her  girlish  arms  and 
neck,  and  the  winning  lines  of  her  face.  The  girl's 
eyes  shone  with  a  joyful  excitement,  and  her  little 
head,  defined  by  its  dark  hair,  trembled  as  she 
slowly  turned  it  from  side  to  side,  after  she  removed 
the  airy  scarf  which  had  covered  it.  Her  father,  in 
evening  dress,  looked  the  Third  Emperor  complaisant 
to  a  civil  occasion,  and  took  a  chair  in  the  front  of  the 
box  without  resistance ;  and  the  ladies  disputed  which 
should  yield  the  best  place  to  the  other,  till  Miss  Tris- 


300  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

coe  forced  Mrs.  March  fondly  into  it  for  the  first  act 
at  least. 

The  piece  had  to  be  cut  a  good  deal  to  give  people 
time  for  the  illuminations  afterwards ;  but  as  it  was  it 
gave  scope  to  the  actress  who,  als  Gast  from  a  Vien 
nese  theatre,  was  the  chief  figure  in  it.  She  merited 
the  distinction  by  the  art  which  still  lingered,  deeply 
embedded  in  her  massive  bulk,  but  never  wholly  ob 
scured. 

"That  is  grand,  isn't  it?"  said  March,  following 
one  of  the  tremendous  strokes  by  which  she  overcame 
her  physical  disadvantages.  "  It's  fine  to  see  how  her 
art  can  undo,  for  one  splendid  instant,  the  work  of  all 
those  steins  of  beer,  those  illimitable  links  of  sausage, 
those  boundless  fields  of  cabbage.  But  it's  rather 
pathetic." 

"  It's  disgusting,"  said  his  wife ;  and  at  this  Gen 
eral  Triscoe,  who  had  been  watching  the  actress 
through  his  lorgnette,  said,  as  if  his  contrary-minded- 
ness  were  irresistably  invoked : 

"  Well,  I  don't  know.  It's  amusing.  Do  you  sup 
pose  we  shall  see  her  when  we  go  behind,  March  ? " 

He  still  professed  a  desire  to  do  so  when  the  cur 
tain  fell,  and  they  hurried  to  the  rear  door  of  the 
theatre.  It  was  slightly  ajar,  and  they  pulled  it  wide 
open,  with  the  eagerness  of  their  age  and  nation,  and 
began  to  mount  the  stairs  leading  up  from  it  between 
rows  of  painted  dancing-girls,  who  had  come  out  for 
a  breath  of  air,  and  who  pressed  themselves  against 
the  walls  to  make  room  for  the  intruders.  With 
their  rouged  faces,  and  the  stare  of  their  glassy  eyes 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  301 

intensified  by  the  coloring  of  their  brows  and  lashes, 
they  were  like  painted  statues,  as  they  stood  there 
with  their  crimsoned  lips  parted  in  astonished  smiles. 
"  This  is  rather  weird,"  said  March,  faltering  at  the 
sight.  "  I  wonder  if  we  might  ask  these  young  ladies 
where  to  go  ? "  General  Triscoe  made  no  answer,  and 
was  apparently  no  more  prepared  than  himself  to  ac 
cost  the  files  of  danseuses,  when  they  were  themselves 
accosted  by  an  angry  voice  from  the  head  of  the  stairs 
with  a  demand  for  their  business.  The  voice  belonged 
to  a  gendarme,  who  descended  toward  them  and 
seemed  as  deeply  scandalized  at  their  appearance  as 
they  could  have  been  at  that  of  the  young  ladies. 

March  explained,  in  his  ineffective  German,  with 
every  effect  of  improbability,  that  they  were  there  by 
appointment  of  the  manager,  and  wished  to  find  his 
room. 

The  gendarme  would  not  or  could  not  make  any 
thing  out  of  it.  He  pressed  down  upon  them,  and 
laying  a  rude  hand  on  a  shoulder  of  either,  began  to 
force  them  back  to  the  door.  The  mild  nature  of  the 
editor  might  have  yielded  to  his  violence,  but  the 
martial  spirit  of  General  Triscoe  was  roused.  He 
shrugged  the  gendarme's  hand  from  his  shoulder,  and 
with  a  voice  as  furious  as  his  own  requried  him,  in 
English,  to  say  what  the  devil  he  meant.  The  gen 
darme  rejoined  with  equal  heat  in  German ;  the  gener 
al's  tone  rose  in  anger ;  the  dancing-girls  emitted  some 
little  shrieks  of  alarm,  and  fled  noisily  up  the  stairs. 
From  time  to  time  March  interposed  with  a  word  of 
the  German  which  had  mostly  deserted  him  in  his 


302  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

hour  of  need ;  but  if  it  had  been  a  flow  of  intelligible 
expostulation,  it  would  have  had  no  effect  upon  the 
disputants.  They  grew  more  outrageous,  till  the 
manager  himself  appeared  at  the  head  of  the  stairs, 
and  extended  an  arresting  hand  over  the  hubbub.  As 
soon  as  the  situation  clarified  itself  he  hurried  down 
to  his  visitors  with  a  polite  roar  of  apology  and  res 
cued  them  from  the  gendarme,  and  led  them  up  to  his 
room  and  forced  them  into  arm-chairs  with  a  rapidity 
of  reparation  which  did  not  exhaust  itself  till  he  had 
entreated  them  with  every  circumstance  of  civility  to 
excuse  an  incident  so  mortifying  to  him.  But  with 
all  his  haste  he  lost  so  much  time  in  this  that  he  had 
little  left  to  show  them  through  the  theatre,  and  their 
presentation  to  the  prima  donna  was  reduced  to  the 
obeisances  with  which  they  met  and  parted  as  she 
went  upon  the  stage  at  the  lifting  of  the  curtain.  In 
the  lack  of  a  common  language  this  was  perhaps  as 
well  as  a  longer  interview  ;  and  nothing  could  have 
been  more  honorable  than  their  dismissal  at  the  hands 
of  the  gendarme  who  had  received  them  so  storm ily. 
He  opened  the  door  for  them,  and  stood  with  his  rin 
gers  to  his  cap  saluting,  in  the  effect  of  being  a  whole 
file  of  grenadiers. 


XLIII. 

AT  the  same  moment  Burnamy  bowed  himself  out 
of  the  box  where  he  had  been  sitting  with  the  ladies 
during  the  absence  of  the  gentlemen.  He  had  knock 
ed  at  the  door  almost  as  soon  as  they  disappeared,  and 
if  he  did  not  fully  share  the  consternation  which  his 
presence  caused,  he  looked  so  frightened  that  Mrs. 
March  reserved  the  censure  which  the  sight  of  him 
inspired,  and  in  default  of  other  inspiration  treated 
his  coming  simply  as  a  surprise.  She  shook  hands 
with  him,  and  then  she  asked  him  to  sit  down,  and 
listened  to  his  explanation  that  he  had  come  back  to 
Carlsbad  to  write  up  the  birthnight  festivities,  on  an 
order  from  the  Paris-New  York  Chronicle;  that  he 
had  seen  them  in  the  box  and  had  ventured  to  look 
in.  He  was  pale,  and  so  discomposed  that  the  heart 
of  justice  was  softened  more  and  more  in  Mrs.  March's 
breast,  and  she  left  him  to  the  talk  that  sprang  up, 
by  an  admirable  effect  of  tact  in  the  young  lady,  be 
tween  him  and  Miss  Triscoe. 

After  all,  she  decided,  there  was  nothing  criminal 
in  his  being  in  Carlsbad,  and  possibly  in  the  last  an 
alysis  there  was  nothing  so  very  wicked  in  his  being 


304  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

in  her  box.  One  might  say  that  it  was  not  very  nice 
of  him  after  he  had  gone  away  under  such  a  cloud  ; 
but  on  the  other  hand  it  was  nice,  though  in  a  differ 
ent  way,  if  he  longed  so  much  to  see  Miss  Triscoe 
that  he  could  not  help  coming.  It  was  altogether  in 
his  favor  that  he  was  so  agitated,  though  he  was  mo 
mently  becoming  less  agitated  ;  the  young  people 
were  beginning  to  laugh  at  the  notion  of  Mr.  March 
and  General  Triscoe  going  behind  the  scenes.  Bur- 
namy  said  he  envied  them  the  chance  ;  and  added,  not 
very  relevantly,  that  he  had  come  from  Baireuth, 
where  he  had  seen  the  last  of  the  Wagner  perform 
ances.  He  said  he  was  going  back  to  Baireuth,  but 
not  to  Ansbach  again,  where  he  had  finished  looking 
up  that  Kaspar  Hauser  business.  He  seemed  to  think 
Mrs.  March  would  know  about  it,  and  she  could  not 
help  saying,  Oh,  yes,  Mr.  March  was  so  much  inter 
ested.  She  wondered  if  she  ought  to  tell  him  about 
his  handkerchief ;  but  she  remembered  in  time  that 
she  had  left  it  in  Miss  Triscoe's  keeping.  She  won 
dered  if  the  girl  realized  how  handsome  he  was.  He 
was  extremely  handsome,  in  his  black  evening  dress, 
with  his  Tuxedo,  and  the  pallor  of  his  face  repeated 
in  his  expanse  of  shirt  front. 

At  the  bell  for  the  rising  of  the  curtain  he  rose  too, 
and  took  their  offered  hands.  In  offering  hers  Mrs. 
March  asked  if  he  would  not  stay  and  speak  with  Mr. 
March  and  the  general ;  and  now  for  the  first  time  he 
recognized  anything  clandestine  in  his  visit.  He 
laughed  nervously,  and  said,  "  No,  thank  you  !  "  and 
shut  himself  out. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  305 

"  We  must  tell  them,"  said  Mrs.  March,  rather  in 
terrogatively,  and  she  was  glad  that  the  girl  answered 
with  a  note  of  indignation. 

"Why,  certainly,  Mrs.  March." 

They  could  not  tell  them  at  once,  for  the  second 
act  had  begun  when  March  and  the  general  came  back ; 
and  after  the  opera  was  over  and  they  got  out  into  the 
crowded  street  there  was  no  chance,  for  the  general 
was  obliged  to  offer  his  arm  to  Mrs.  March,  while  her 
husband  followed  with  his  daughter. 

The  facades  of  the  theatre  and  of  the  hotels  were 
outlined  with  thickly  set  little  lamps,  which  beaded 
the  arches  of  the  bridges  spanning  the  Tepl,  and 
lighted  the  casements  and  portals  of  the  shops.  High 
above  all,  against  the  curtain  of  black  woodland  on 
the  mountain  where  its  skeleton  had  been  growing 
for  days,  glittered  the  colossal  effigy  of  the  double- 
headed  eagle  of  Austria,  crowned  with  the  tiara  of  the 
Holy  Roman  Empire ;  in  the  reflected  splendor  of  its 
myriad  lamps  the  pale  Christ  looked  down  from  the 
mountain  opposite  upon  the  surging  multitudes  in  the 
streets  and  on  the  bridges. 

They  were  most  amiable  multitudes,  March  thought, 
and  they  responded  docilely  to  the  entreaties  of  the 
policemen  who  stood  on  the  steps  of  the  bridges,  and 
divided  their  encountering  currents  with  patient  ap 
peals  of  "  Bitte  schon  !  Bitte  schon  !  "  He  laughed 
to  think  of  a  New  York  cop  saying  "  Please  prettily ! 
Please  prettily !  "  to  a  New  York  crowd  which  he 
wished  to  have  go  this  way  or  that,  and  then  he 
burned  with  shame  to  think  how  far  our  manners 


• 


306  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

were  from  civilization,  wherever  our  heads  and  hearts 
might  be,  when  he  heard  a  voice  at  his  elbow : 

"  A  punch  with  a  club  would  start  some  of  these 
fellows  along  quicker." 

It  was  Stoller,  and  March  turned  from  him  to  lose 
his  disgust  in  the  sudden  terror  of  perceiving  that 
Miss  Triscoe  was  no  longer  at  his  side.  Neither  could 
he  see  his  wife  and  General  Triscoe,  and  he  began  to 
push  frantically  about  in  the  crowd  looking  for  the 
girl.  He  had  an  interminable  five  or  ten  minutes  in 
his  vain  search,  and  he  was  going  to  call  out  to  her 
by  name,  when  Burnamy  saved  him  from  the  hopeless 
absurdity  by  elbowing  his  way  to  him  with  Miss  Tris 
coe  on  his  arm. 

"  Here  she  is,  Mr.  March,"  he  said,  as  if  there  were 
nothing  strange  in  his  having  been  there  to  find  her ; 
in  fact  he  had  followed  them  all  from  the  theatre,  and 
at  the  moment  he  saw  the  party  separated,  and  Miss 
Triscoe  carried  off  helpless  in  the  human  stream,  had 
plunged  in  and  rescued  her.  Before  March  could 
formulate  any  question  in  his  bewilderment,  Burnamy 
was  gone  again  ;  the  girl  offered  no  explanation  for 
him,  and  March  had  not  yet  decided  to  ask  any  when 
he  caught  sight  of  his  wife  and  General  Triscoe  stand 
ing  tiptoe  in  a  doorway  and  craning  their  necks  up 
ward  and  forward  to  scan  the  crowd  in  search  of  him 
and  his  charge.  Then  he  looked  round  at  her  and 
opened  his  lips  to  express  the  astonishment  that  filled 
him,  when  he  was  aware  of  an  ominous  shining  of  her 
eyes  and  trembling  of  her  hand  on  his  arm. 

She  pressed  his  arm  nervously,  and  he  understood 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  307 

her  to  beg  him  to  forbear  at  once  all  question  of  her 
and  all  comment  on  Burnamy's  presence  to  her  father. 

It  would  not  have  been  just  the  time  for  either. 
Not  only  Mrs.  March  was  with  the  general,  but  Mrs. 
Adding  also  ;  she  had  called  to  them  from  that  place, 
where  she  was  safe  with  Rose  when  she  saw  them 
eddying  about  in  the  crowd.  The  general  was  still 
expressing  a  gratitude  which  became  more  pressing 
the  more  it  was  disclaimed ;  he  said  casually  at  sight 
of  his  daughter,  "  Ah,  you've  found  us,  have  you  ?  " 
and  went  on  talking  to  Mrs.  Adding,  who  nodded  to 
them  laughingly,  and  asked,  "Did  you  see  me  beck 
oning  ? " 

"  Look  here,  my  dear  !  "  March  said  to  his  wife  as 
soon  as  they  parted  from  the  rest,  the  general  gal 
lantly  promising  that  his  daughter  and  he  would  see 
Mrs.  Adding  safe  to  her  hotel,  and  were  making  their 
way  slowly  home  alone.  "  Did  you  know  that  Bur- 
namy  was  in  Carlsbad  ?  " 

"  He's  going  away  on  the  twelve-o'clock  train  to 
night,"  she  answered,  firmly. 

"  What  has  that  got  to  do  with  it  ?  Where  did 
you  see  him  ?  " 

"  In  the  box,  while  you  were  behind  the  scenes." 

She  told  him  all  about  it,  and  he  listened  in  silent 
endeavor  for  the  ground  of  censure  from  which  a 
sense  of  his  own  guilt  forced  him.  She  asked  sud 
denly,  "  Where  did  you  see  him  ?  "  and  he  told  her  in 
turn.  • 

He  added  severely,  "  Her  father  ought  to  know. 
Why  didn't  you  tell  him  ?  " 


308  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  Why  didn't  you  ?  "  she  retorted  with  great  reason. 

"  Because  I  didn't  think  he  was  just  in  the  humor 
for  it."  He  began  to  laugh  as  he  sketched  their  en 
counter  with  the  gendarme,  but  she  did  not  seem  to 
think  it  amusing;  and  he  became  serious  again.  "  Be 
sides,  I  w£s  afraid  she  was  going  to  blubber,  any  way." 

"  She  wouldn't  have  blubbered,  as  you  call  it.  I 
don't  know  why  you  need  be  so  disgusting !  It  would 
have  given  her  just  the  moral  support  she  needed. 
Now  she  will  have  to  tell  him  herself,  and  he  will 
blame  us.  You  ought  to  have  spoken;  you  could 
have  done  it  easily  and  naturally  when  you  came  up 
with  her.  You  will  have  yourself  to  thank  for  all  the 
trouble  that  comes  of  it,  now,  my  dear." 

He  shouted  in  admiration  of  her  skill  in  shifting 
the  blame  on  him.  "  All  right !  I  should  have  had  to 
stand  it,  even  if  you  hadn't  behaved  with  angelic  wis 
dom." 

"  Why,"  she  said,  after  reflection,  "  I  don't  see 
what  either  of  us  has  done.  We  didn't  get  Burnamy 
to  come  here,  or  connive  at  his  presence  in  any  way." 

"  Oh  !  Make  Triscoe  believe  that !  He  knows  you've 
done  all  you  could  to  help  the  affair  on." 

"  Well,  what  if  I  have  ?  He  began  making  up  to 
Mrs.  Adding  himself  as  soon  as  he  saw  her,  to-night. 
She  looked  very  pretty." 

"  Well,  thank  Heaven  !  we're  off  to-morrow  morn 
ing,  and  I  hope  we've  seen  the  last  of  them.  They've 
done  what  they  could  to  spoil  my  cure,  but  I'm  not 
going  to  have  them  spoil  my  after-cure." 


XLIV. 

MRS.  March  had  decided  not  to  go  to  the  Posthof 
for  breakfast,  where  they  had  already  taken  a  lavish 
leave  of  the  schone  Lili,  with  a  sense  of  being  promptly 
superseded  in  her  affections.  They  found  a  place  in 
the  red-table-cloth  end  of  the  pavilion  at  Pupp's,  and 
were  served  by  the  pretty  girl  with  the  rose-bud 
mouth  whom  they  had  known  only  as  Ein-und- 
Zwanzig,  and  whose  promise  of  "  Komm'  gleich,  bitte 
schdn ! "  was  like  a  bird's  note.  Never  had  the 
coffee  been  so  good,  the  bread  so  aerially  light,  the 
Westphalian  ham  so  tenderly  pink.  A  young  married 
couple  whom  they  knew  came  by,  arm  in  arm,  in  their 
morning  walk,  and  sat  down  with  them,  like  their  own 
youth,  for  a  moment. 

"  If  you  had  told  them  we  were  going,  dear,"  said 
Mrs.  March,  when  the  couple  were  themselves  gone, 
"  we  should  have  been  as  old  as  ever.  Don't  let  us 
tell  anybody,  this  morning,  that  we're  going.  I 
couldn't  bear  it." 

They  had  been  obliged  to  take  the  secretary  of  the 
hotel  into  their  confidence,  in  the  process  of  paying 


310  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

their  bill.  He  put  on  his  high  hat  and  came  out  to 
see  them  off.  The  portier  was  already  there,  standing 
at  the  step  of  the  lordly  two-spanner  which  they  had 
ordered  for  the  long  drive  to  the  station.  The  Swiss 
elevator-man  came  to  the  door  to  offer  them  a  fellow- 
republican's  good  wishes  for  their  journey ;  Herr 
Pupp  himself  appeared  at  the  last  moment  to  hope 
for  their  return  another  summer.  Mrs.  March  bent 
a  last  look  of  interest  upon  the  proprietor  as  their 
two-spanner  whirled  away. 

"  They  say  that  he  is  going  to  be  made  a  count." 

"  Well,  I  don't  object,"  said  March.  "  A  man  who 
can  feed  fourteen  thousand  people,  mostly  Germans, 
in  a  day,  ought  to  be  made  an  archduke." 

At  the  station  something  happened  which  touched 
them  even  more  than  these  last  attentions  of  the  hotel. 
They  were  in  their  compartment,  and  were  in  the  act 
of  possessing  themselves  of  the  best  places  by  putting 
their  bundles  and  bags  on  them,  when  they  heard 
Mrs.  March's  name  called. 

They  turned  and  saw  Rose  Adding  at  the  door,  his 
thin  face  flushed  with  excitement  and  his  eyes  glow 
ing.  "  I  was  afraid  I  shouldn't  get  here  in  time," 
he  panted,  and  he  held  up  to  her  a  huge  bunch  of 
flowers. 

"  Why  Rose  !     From  your  mother  ? " 

"  From  me,"  he  said,  timidly,  and  he  was  slipping 
out  into  the  corridor,  when  she  caught  him  and  his 
flowers  to  her  in  one  embrace.  "  I  want  to  kiss  you," 
she  said ;  and  presently,  when  he  had  waved  his  hand 
to  them  from  the  platform  outside,  and  the  train  had 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  311 

started,  she  fumbled  for  her  handkerchief.  "  I  sup 
pose  you  call  it  blubbering ;  but  he  is  the  sweetest 
child ! " 

"  He's  about  the  only  one  of  our  Carlsbad  compa 
triots  that  I'm  sorry  to  leave  behind,"  March  assented. 
"  He's  the  only  unmarried  one  that  wasn't  in  danger 
of  turning  up  a  lover  on  my  hands ;  if  there  had  been 
some  rather  old  girl,  or  some  rather  light  matron  in 
our  acquaintance,  I'm  not  sure  that  I  should  have 
been  safe  even  from  Rose.  Carlsbad  has  been  an  in 
terruption  to  our  silver  wedding  journey,  my  dear; 
but  I  hope  now  that  it  will  begin  again." 

"  Yes,"  said  his  wife,  "  now  we  can  have  each  other 
all  to  ourselves." 

"  Yes.  It's  been  very  different  from  our  first  wed 
ding  journey  in  that.  It  isn't  that  we're  not  so  young 
now  as  we  were,  but  that  we  don't  seem  so  much  our 
own  property.  We  used  to  be  the  sole  proprietors, 
and  now  we  seem  to  be  mere  tenants  at  will,  and  any 
interloping  lover  may  come  in  and  set  our  dearest  in 
terests  on  the  sidewalk.  The  disadvantage  of  living 
along  is  that  we  get  too  much  into  the  hands  of  other 
people." 

"  Yes,  it  is.  I  shall  be  glad  to  be  rid  of  them  all, 
too." 

"  I  don't  know  that  the  drawback  is  serious  enough 
to  make  us  wish  we  had  died  young — or  younger," 
he  suggested. 

"  No,  I  don't  know  that  it  is,"  she  assented.  She 
added,  from  an  absence  where  he  was  sufficiently  able 
to  locate  her  meaning,  "  I  hope  she'll  write  and  tell 


312  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

me  what  her  father  says  and  does  when  she  tells  him 
that  he  was  there." 

There  were  many  things,  in  the  weather,  the  land 
scape,  their  sole  occupancy  of  an  unsmoking  compart 
ment,  while  all  the  smoking  compartments  round 
overflowed  with  smokers,  which  conspired  to  offer 
them  a  pleasing  illusion  of  the  past ;  it  was  sometimes 
so  perfect  that  they  almost  held  each  other's  hands. 
In  later  life  there  are  such  moments  when  the  youth 
ful  emotions  come  back,  as  certain  birds  do  in  winter, 
and  the  elderly  heart  chirps  and  twitters  to  itself  as 
if  it  were  young.  But  it  is  best  to  discourage  this 
fondness;  and  Mrs.  March  joined  her  husband  in 
mocking  it,  when  he  made  her  observe  how  fit  it  was 
that  their  silver  wedding  journey  should  be  resumed 
as  part  of  his  after-cure.  If  he  had  found  the  fount 
ain  of  youth  in  the  warm,  flat,  faintly  nauseous  water 
of  the  Felsenquelle,  he  was  not  going  to  call  himself 
twenty-eight  again  till  his  second  month  of  the  Carls 
bad  regimen  was  out,  and  he  had  got  back  to  salad 
and  fruit. 

At  Eger  they  had  a  memorable  dinner,  with  so 
much  leisure  for  it  that  they  could  form  a  life-long 
friendship  for  the  old  English-speaking  waiter  who 
served  them,  and  would  not  suffer  them  to  hurry 
themselves.  The  hills  had  already  fallen  away,  and 
they  ran  along  through  a  cheerful  country,  with  tracts 
of  forest  under  white  clouds  blowing  about  in  a  blue 
sky,  and  gayly  flinging  their  shadows  down  upon  the 
brown  ploughed  land,  and  upon  the  yellow  oat-fields, 
where  women  were  cutting  the  leisurely  harvest  with 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  313 

sickles,  and  where  once  a  great  girl  with  swarthy  bare 
arms  unbent  herself  from  her  toil,  and  rose,  a  statue 
of  rude  vigor  and  beauty,  to  watch  them  go  by. 
Hedges  of  evergreen  enclosed  the  yellow  oat-fields, 
where  slow  wagons  paused  to  gather  the  sheaves  of 
the  week  before,  and  then  loitered  away  with  them. 
Flocks  of  geese  waddled  in  sculpturesque  relief  against 
the  close-cropt  pastures,  herded  by  little  girls  with 
flaxen  pigtails,  whose  eyes,  blue  as  corn-flowers,  fol 
lowed  the  flying  train.  There  were  stretches  of  wild 
thyme  purpling  long  barren  acreages,  and  growing  up 
the  railroad  banks  almost  to  the  rails  themselves. 
From  the  meadows  the  rowen,  tossed  in  long  loose 
windrows,  sent  into  their  car  a  sad  autumnal  fragrance 
which  mingled  with  the  tobacco  smoke,  when  two  fat 
smokers  emerged  into  the  narrow  corridor  outside 
their  compartments  and  tried  to  pass  each  other. 
Their  vast  stomachs  beat  together  in  a  vain  encounter. 

"  Zu  enge  !  "  said  one,  and  "  Ja,  zu  enge  !  "  said  the 
other,  and  they  laughed  innocently  in  each  other's 
faces,  with  a  joy  in  their  recognition  of  the  corridor's 
narrowness  as  great  as  if  it  had  been  a  stroke  of  the 
finest  wit. 

All  the  way  the  land  was  lovely,  and  as  they  drew 
near  Nuremberg  it  grew  enchanting,  with  a  fairy 
quaintness.  The  scenery  was  Alpine,  but  the  scale 
was  toy-like,  as  befitted  the  region,  and  the  mimic 
peaks  and  valleys  with  green  brooks  gushing  between 
them,  and  strange  rock  forms  recurring  in  endless 
caprice,  seemed  the  home  of  children's  story.  All  the 
gnomes  and  elves  might  have  dwelt  there  in  peaceful 


314  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

fellowship  with  the  peasants  who  ploughed  the  little 
fields,  and  gathered  the  garlanded  hops,  and  lived  in 
the  farmsteads  and  village  houses  with  those  high 
timber-laced  gables. 

"  We  ought  to  have  come  here  long  ago  with  the 
children,  when  they  were  children,"  said  March. 

"  No,"  his  wife  returned  ;  "  it  would  have  been  too 
much  for  them.  Nobody  but  grown  people  could 
bear  it." 

The  spell  which  began  here  was  not  really  broken 
by  anything  that  afterwards  happened  in  Nuremberg, 
though  the  old  toy-capital  was  trolley-wired  through 
all  its  quaintness,  and  they  were  lodged  in  a  hotel 
lighted  by  electricity  and  heated  by  steam,  and  equip 
ped  with  an  elevator  which  was  so  modern  that  it 
came  down  with  them  as  well  as  went  up.  All  the 
things  that  assumed  to  be  of  recent  structure  or  in 
vention  were  as  nothing  against  the  dense  past,  which 
overwhelmed  them  with  the  sense  of  a  world  elsewhere 
outlived.  In  Nuremberg  it  is  not  the  quaint  or  the 
picturesque  that  is  exceptional ;  it  is  the  matter-of-fact 
and  the  commonplace.  Here,  more  than  anywhere 
else,  you  are  steeped  in  the  gothic  spirit  which  ex 
presses  itself  in  a  Teutonic  dialect  of  homely  sweet 
ness,  of  endearing  caprice,  of  rude  grotesqueness,  but 
of  positive  grace  and  beauty  almost  never.  It  is  the 
architectural  speech  of  a  strenuous,  gross,  kindly,  hon 
est  people's  fancy ;  such  as  it  is  it  was  inexhaustible, 
and  such  as  it  is  it  was  bewitching  for  the  travellers. 
They  could  hardly  wait  till  they  had  supper  before 
plunging  into  the  ancient  town,  and  they  took  the 


THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  315 

first  tram-car  at  a  venture.  It  was  a  sort  of  transfer, 
drawn  by  horses,  which  delivered  them  a  little  inside 
of  the  city  gate  to  a  trolley-car.  The  conductor  with 
their  fare  demanded  their  destination ;  March  frankly 
owned  that  they  did  not  know  where  they  wanted  to 
go ;  they  wanted  to  go  anywhere  the  conductor  chose ; 
and  the  conductor,  after  reflection,  decided  to  put 
them  down  at  the  public  garden,  which,  as  one  of 
the  newest  things  in  the  city,  would  make  the  most 
favorable  impression  upon  strangers.  It  was  in  fact 
so  like  all  other  city  gardens,  with  the  foliage  of  its 
trimly  planted  alleys,  that  it  sheltered  them  effectually 
from  the  picturesqueness  of  Nuremberg,  and  they  had 
a  long,  peaceful  hour  on  one  of  its  'benches,  where 
they  rested  from  their  journey,  and  repented  their 
hasty  attempt  to  appropriate  the  charm  of  the  city. 

The  next  morning  it  rained,  according  to  a  custom 
which  the  elevator-boy  (flown  with  the  insolent  recol 
lection  of  a  sunny  summer  in  Milan)  said  was  invari 
able  in  Nuremberg;  but  after  the  one-o'clock  table 
d'hote  they  took  a  noble  two-spanner  carriage,  and 
drove  all  round  the  city.  Everywhere  the  ancient 
moat,  thickly  turfed  and  planted  with  trees  and  shrubs, 
stretched  a  girdle  of  garden  between  their  course  and 
the  wall  beautifully  old,  with  knots  of  dead  ivy  cling 
ing  to  its  crevices,  or  broad  meshes  of  the  shining 
foliage  mantling  its  blackened  masonry.  A  tile-roofed 
open  gallery  ran  along  the  top,  where  so  many  cen 
turies  of  sentries  had  paced,  and  arched  the  massive 
gates  with  heavily  moulded  piers,  where  so  countlessly 
the  fierce  burgher  troops  had  sallied  forth  against 


316  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

their  besiegers,  and  so  often  the  leaguer  hosts  had 
dashed  themselves  in  assault.  The  blood  shed  in  for 
gotten  battles  would  have  flooded  the  moat  where  now 
the  grass  and  flowers  grew,  or  here  and  there  a  peace 
ful  stretch  of  water  stagnated. 

The  drive  ended  in  a  visit  to  the  old  Burg,  where 
the  Hapsburg  Kaisers  dwelt  when  they  visited  their 
faithful  imperial  city.  From  its  ramparts  the  incred 
ible  picturesqueness  of  Nuremberg  best  shows  itself, 
and  if  one  has  any  love  for  the  distinctive  quality  of 
Teutonic  architecture  it  is  here  that  more  than  any 
where  else  one  may  feast  it.  The  prospect  of  tower 
and  spire  and  gable  is  of  such  a  mediaeval  richness,  of 
such  an  abounding  fulness,  that  all  incidents  are  lost 
in  it.  The  multitudinous  roofs  of  red-brown  tiles, 
blinking  browsily  from  their  low  dormers,  press  upon 
one  another  in  endless  succession ;  they  cluster  to 
gether  on  a  rise  of  ground  and  sink  away  where  the 
street  falls,  but  they  nowhere  disperse  or  scatter,  and 
they  end  abruptly  at  the  other  rim  of  the  city,  beyond 
which  looms  the  green  country,  merging  in  the  re 
moter  blue  of  misty  uplands. 

A  pretty  young  girl  waited  at  the  door  of  the  tower 
for.  the  visitors  to  gather  in  sufficient  number,  and 
then  led  them  through  the  terrible  museum,  discant- 
ing  in  the  same  gay  voice  and  with  the  same  smiling 
air  on  all  the  murderous  engines  and  implements  of 
torture.  First  in  German  and  then  in  English  she 
explained  the  fearful  uses  of  the  Iron  Maiden,  she 
winningly  illustrated  the  action  of  the  racks  and 
wheels  on  which  men  had  been  stretched  and  broken, 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  317 

and  she  sweetly  vaunted  a  sword  which  had  beheaded 
eight  hundred  persons.  When  she  took  the  established 
fee  from  March  she  suggested,  with  a  demure  glance, 
"  And  what  more  you  please  for  saying  it  in  English." 
"  Can  you  say  it  in  Russian  ? "  demanded  a  young 
man,  whose  eyes  he  had  seen  dwelling  on  her  from 
the  beginning.  She  laughed  archly,  and  responded 
with  some  Slavic  words,  and  then  delivered  her  train 
of  sight-seers  over  to  the  custodian  who  was  to  show 
them  through  the  halls  and  chambers  of  the  Burg. 
These  were  undergoing  the  repairs  which  the  monu 
ments  of  the  past  are  perpetually  suffering  in  the 
present,  and  there  was  some  special  painting  and  var 
nishing  for  the  reception  of  the  Kaiser,  who  was  com 
ing  to  Nuremberg  for  the  military  manoauvres  then  at 
hand.  But  if  they  had  been  in  the  unmolested  dis 
comfort  of  their  unlivable  magnificence,  their  splendor 
was  such  as  might  well  reconcile  the  witness  to  the 
superior  comfort  of  a  private  station  in  our  snugger 
day.  The  Marches  came  out  owning  that  the  youth 
which  might  once  have  found  the  romantic  glories  of 
the  place  enough  was  gone  from  them.  But  so  much 
of  it  was  left  to  her  that  she  wished  to  make  him  stop 
and  look  at  the  flirtation  which  had  blossomed  out 
between  that  pretty  young  girl  and  the  Russian,  whom 
they  had  scarcely  missed  from  their  party  in  the  Burg. 
He  had  apparently  never  parted  from  the  girl,  and 
now  as  they  sat  together  on  the  threshold  of  the 
gloomy  tower,  he  must  have  been  teaching  her  more 
Slavic  words,  for  they  were  both  laughing  as  if  they 
understood  each  other  perfectly. 


318          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

In  his  security  from  having  the  affair  in  any  wise 
on  his  hands,  March  would  have  willingly  lingered,  to 
see  how  her  education  got  on ;  but  it  began  to  rain. 
The  rain  did  not  disturb  the  lovers,  but  it  obliged  the 
elderly  spectators  to  take  refuge  in  their  carriage ;  and 
they  drove  off  to  find  the  famous  Little  Goose  Man. 
This  is  what  every  one  does  at  Nuremberg;  it  would 
be  difficult  to  say  why.  When  they  found  the  Little 
Goose  Man,  he  was  only  a  mediaeval  fancy  in  bronze, 
who  stood  on  his  pedestal  in  the  market-place  and 
contributed  from  the  bill  of  the  goose  under  his  arm 
a  small  stream  to  the  rainfall  drenching  the  wet  wares 
of  the  wet  market-women  round  the  fountain,  and 
soaking  their  cauliflowers  and  lettuce,  their  grapes 
and  pears,  their  carrots  and  turnips,  to  the  watery 
flavor  of  all  fruits  and  vegetables  in  Germany. 

The  air  was  very  raw  and  chill ;  but  after  supper  the 
clouds  cleared  away,  and  a  pleasant  evening  tempted 
the  travellers  out.  The  portier  dissembled  any  slight 
which  their  eagerness  for  the  only  amusement  he 
could  think  of  inspired,  and  directed  them  to  a  popu 
lar  theatre  which  was  giving  a  summer  season  at  low 
prices  to  the  lower  classes,  and  which  they  surprised, 
after  some  search,  trying  to  hide  itself  in  a  sort  of 
back  square.  They  got  the  best  places  at  a  price 
which  ought  to  have  been  mortifyingly  cheap,  and 
found  themselves,  with  a  thousand  other  harmless 
bourgeois  folk,  in  a  sort  of  spacious,  agreeable  barn, 
of  a  decoration  by  no  means  ugly,  and  of  a  certain 
artless  comfort.  Each  seat  fronted  a  shelf  at  the  back 
of  the  seat  before  it,  where  the  spectator  could  put 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  319 

his  hat ;  there  was  a  smaller  shelf  for  his  stein  of  the 
beer  passed  constantly  throughout  the  evening ;  and 
there  was  a  buffet  where  he  could  stay  himself  with 
cold  ham  and  other  robust  German  refreshments. 

It  was  "  The  Wedding  Journey  to  Nuremberg  " 
upon  which  they  had  oddly  chanced,  and  they  accept 
ed  as  a  national  tribute  the  character  of  an  American 
girl  in  it.  She  was  an  American  girl  of  the  advanced 
pattern,  and  she  came  and  went  at  a  picnic  on  the 
arm  of  a  head  waiter.  She  seemed  to  have  no  office 
in  the  drama  except  to  illustrate  a  German  conception 
of  American  girlhood,  but  even  in  this  simple  function 
she  seemed  rather  to  puzzle  the  German  audience; 
perhaps  because  of  the  occasional  English  words 
which  she  used. 

To  the  astonishment  of  her  compatriots,  when  they 
came  out  of  the  theatre  it  was  not  raining ;  the  night 
was  as  brilliantly  starlit  as  a  night  could  be  in  Ger 
many,  and  they  sauntered  home  richly  content  through 
the  narrow  streets  and  through  the  beautiful  old  Da- 
menthor,  beyond  which  their  hotel  lay.  How  pretty, 
they  said,  to  call  that  charming  port  the  Ladies'  Gate ! 
They  promised  each  other  to  find  out  why,  and  they 
never  did  so,  but  satisfied  themselves  by  assigning  it 
to  the  exclusive  use  of  the  slim  maidens  and  massive 
matrons  of  the  old  Nuremberg  patriciate,  whom  they 
imagined  trailing  their  silken  splendors  under  its  arch 
in  perpetual  procession. 


XLV. 

THE  life  of  the  Nuremberg  patriciate,  now  extinct 
in  the  control  of  the  city  which  it  builded  so  strenu 
ously  and  maintained  so  heroically,  is  still  insistent  in 
all  its  art.  This  expresses  their  pride  at  once  and 
their  simplicity  with  a  childish  literality.  At  its  best 
it  is  never  so  good  as  the  good  Italian  art,  whose  in 
fluence  is  always  present  in  its  best.  The  coloring 
of  the  great  canvases  is  Venetian,  but  there  is  no  such 
democracy  of  greatness  as  in  the  painting  at  Venice ; 
in  decoration  the  art  of  Nuremberg  is  at  best  quaint, 
and  at  the  worst  puerile.  Wherever  it  had  obeyed  an 
academic  intention  it  seemed  to  March  poor  and 
coarse,  as  in  the  bronze  fountain  beside  the  Church 
of  St.  Lawrence.  The  water  spirts  from  the  pouted 
breasts  of  the  beautiful  figures  in  streams  that  cross 
and  interlace  after  a  fancy  trivial  and  gross ;  but  in 
the  base  of  the  church  there  is  a  time-worn  Gethsem- 
arie,  exquisitely  affecting  in  its  simple-hearted  truth. 
The  long  ages  have  made  it  even  more  affecting  than 
the  sculptor  imagined  it ;  they  have  blurred  the  faces 
and  figures  in  passing  till  their  features  are  scarcely 
distinguishable;  and  the  sleeping  apostles  seem  to 


THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.  321 

have  dreamed  themselves  back  into  the  mother-mar 
ble.  It  is  of  the  same  tradition  and  impulse  with 
that  supreme  glory  of  the  native  sculpture,  the  ineffa 
ble  tabernacle  of  Adam  Krafft,  which  climbs  a  column 
of  the  church  within,  a  miracle  of  richly  carven  story ; 
and  no  doubt  if  there  were  a  Nuremberg  sculptor  do 
ing  great  things  to-day,  his  work  would  be  of  kindred 
inspiration. 

The  descendants  of  the  old  patrician  who  ordered 
the  tabernacle  at  rather  a  hard  bargain  from  the  artist 
still  worship  on  the  floor  below,  and  the  descendants 
of  his  neighbor  patricians  have  their  seats  in  the  pews 
about,  and  their  names  cut  in  the  proprietary  plates 
on  the  pew-tops.  The  vergeress  who  showed  the 
Marches  through  the  church  was  devout  in  the  praise 
of  these  aristocratic  fellow-citizens  of  hers.  "  So  sim 
ple,  and  yet  so  noble  ! "  she  said.  She  was  a  very  ro 
mantic  vergeress,  and  she  told  them  at  unsparing  length 
the  legend  of  the  tabernacle,  how  the  artist  fell  asleep 
in  despair  of  winning  his  patron's  daughter,  and  saw 
in  a  vision  the  master-work  with  the  lily-like  droop  at 
top,  which  gained  him  her  hand.  They  did  not  real 
ize  till  too  late  that  it  was  all  out  of  a  novel  of  Georg 
Ebers's,  but  added  to  the  regular  fee  for  the  church  a 
gift  worthy  of  an  inedited  legend. 

Even  then  they  had  a  pleasure  in  her  enthusiasm 
rarely  imparted  by  the  Nuremberg  manner.  They 
missed  there  the  constant,  sweet  civility  of  Carlsbad, 
and  found  themselves  falling  flat  in  their  endeavors 
for  a  little  cordiality.  They  indeed  inspired  with 
some  kindness  the  old  woman  who  showed  them 
U 


322  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

through  that  cemetery  where  Albert  Diirer  and  Hans 
Sachs  and  many  other  illustrious  citizens  lie  buried 
under  monumental  brasses  of  such  beauty 

"  That  kings,  to  have  the  like,  might  wish  to  die." 

But  this  must  have  been  because  they  abandoned 
themselves  so  willingly  to  the  fascination  of  the 
bronze  skull  on  the  tomb  of  a  fourteenth-century  pa 
trician,  which  had  the  uncommon  advantage  of  a  lower 
jaw  hinged  to  the  upper.  She  proudly  clapped  it  up 
and  down  for  their  astonishment,  and  waited,  with  a 
toothless  smile,  to  let  them  discover  the  head  of  a  nail 
artfully  figured  in  the  skull ;  then  she  gave  a  shrill 
cackle  of  joy,  and  gleefully  explained  that  the  wife  of 
this  patrician  had  killed  him  by  driving  a  nail  into  his 
temple,  and  had  been  fitly  beheaded  for  the  murder. 

She  cared  so  much  for  nothing  else  in  the  cemetery, 
but  she  consented  to  let  them  wonder  at  the  richness 
of  the  sculpture  in  the  level  tombs,  with  their  escutch 
eons  and  memorial  tablets,  overrun  by  the  long  grass 
and  the  matted  ivy ;  she  even  consented  to  share  their 
indignation  at  the  destruction  of  some  of  the  brasses 
and  the  theft  of  others.  She  suffered  more  reluct 
antly  their  tenderness  for  the  old,  old  crucifixion  fig 
ured  in  sculpture  at  one  corner  of  the  cemetery,  where 
the  anguish  of  the  Christ  had  long  since  faded  into 
the  stone  from  which  it  had  been  evoked,  and  the 
thieves  were  no  longer  distinguishable  in  their  peni 
tence  or  impenitence;  but  she  parted  friends  with 
them  when  she  saw  how  much  they  seemed  taken 
with  the  votive  chapel  of  the  noble  Holzschuh  family, 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  323 

where  a  line  of  wooden  shoes  puns  upon  the  name  in 
the  frieze,  like  the  line  of  dogs  which  chase  one  an 
other,  with  bones  in  their  mouths,  around  the  Canossa 
palace  at  Verona.  A  sense  of  the  beautiful  house  by 
the  Adige  was  part  of  the  pleasing  confusion  which 
possessed  them  in  Nuremberg  whenever  they  came 
upon  the  expression  of  the  gothic  spirit  common  both 
to  the  German  and  northern  Italian  art.  They  knew 
that  it  was  an  effect  which  had  passed  from  Germany 
into  Italy,  but  in  the  liberal  air  of  the  older  land  it 
had  come  to  so  much  more  beauty  that  now,  when 
they  found  it  in  its  home,  it  seemed  something  fetched 
from  over  the  Alps  and  coarsened  in  the  attempt  to 
naturalize  it  to  an  alien  air. 

In  the  Germanic  Museum  they  fled  to  the  Italian 
painters  from  the  German  pictures  they  had  inspired ; 
in  the  great  hall  of  the  Rathhaus  the  noble  Proces 
sional  of  Diirer  was  the  more  precious,  because  his 
Triumph  of  Maximilian  somehow  suggested  Manteg- 
na's  Triumph  of  Caesar.  There  was  to  be  a  banquet 
in  the  hall,  under  the  mighty  fresco,  to  welcome  the 
German  Emperor,  coining  the  next  week,  and  the 
Rathhaus  was  full  of  work-people  furbishing  it  up 
against  his  arrival,  and  making  it  difficult  for  the  cus 
todian  who  had  it  in  charge  to  show  it  properly  to 
strangers.  She  was  of  the  same  enthusiastic  sister 
hood  as  the  vergeress  of  St.  Lawrence  and  the  guard 
ian  of  the  old  cemetery,  and  by  a  mighty  effort  she 
prevailed  over  the  workmen  so  far  as  to  lead  her 
charges  out  through  the  corridor  where  the  literal 
conscience  of  the  brothers  Kuhn  has  wrought  in  the 


324          THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

roof  to  an  exact  frriage  of  a  tournament  as  it  was  in 
Nuremberg  four  hundred  years  ago.  In  this  relief, 
thronged  with  men  and  horses,  the  gala-life  of  the 
past  survives  in  unexampled  fulness;  and  March 
blamed  himself  after  enjoying  it  for  having  felt  in  it 
that  toy-figure  quality  which  seems  the  final  effect  of 
the  German  gothicism  in  sculpture. 


XLVI. 

ON  Sunday  Mrs.  March  partially  conformed  to  an 
earlier  New  England  ideal  of  the  day  by  ceasing  from 
sight-seeing.  She  could  not  have  understood  the  ser 
mon  if  she  had  gone  to  church,  but  she  appeased  the 
lingering  conscience  she  had  on  this  point  by  not  go 
ing  out  till  afternoon.  Then  she  found  nothing  of 
the  gayety  which  Sunday  afternoon  wears  in  Catholic 
lands.  The  people  were  resting  from  their  week-day 
labors,  but  they  were  not  playing;  and  the  old 
churches,  long  since  converted  to  Lutheran  uses,  were 
locked  against  tourist  curiosity. 

It  was  as  it  should  be ;  it  was  as  it  would  be  at 
home ;  and  yet  in  this  ancient  city,  where  the  past  was 
so  much  alive  in  the  perpetual  picturesqueness,  the 
Marches  felt  an  incongruity  in  it ;  and  they  were  fain 
to  escape  from  the  Protestant  silence  and  seriousness 
of  the  streets  to  the  shade  of  the  public  garden  they 
had  involuntarily  visited  the  evening  of  their  arrival. 

On  a  bench  sat  a  quiet,  rather  dejected  man,  whom 
March  asked  some  question  of  their  way.  He  answer 
ed  in  English,  and  in  the  parley  that  followed  they 


326          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

discovered  that  they  were  all  Americans.  The  strang 
er  proved  to  be  an  American  of  the  sort  commonest 
in  Germany,  and  he  said  he  had  returned  to  his  native 
country  to  get  rid  of  the  ague  which  he  had  taken  on 
Staten  Island.  He  had  been  seventeen  years  in  New 
York,  and  now  a  talk  of  Tammany  and  its  chances  in 
the  next  election,  of  pulls  and  deals,  of  bosses  and 
heelers,  grew  up  between  the  civic  step-brothers,  and 
joined  them  in  a  common  interest.  The  German- 
American  said  he  was  bookkeeper  in  some  glass-works 
which  had  been  closed  by  our  tariff,  and  he  confessed 
that  he  did  not  mean  to  return  to  us,  though  he  spoke 
of  German  affairs  with  the  impartiality  of  an  outsider. 
He  said  that  the  Socialist  party  was  increasing  faster 
than  any  other,  and  that  this  tacitly  meant  the  sup 
pression  of  rank  and  the  abolition  of  monarchy.  He 
warned  March  against  the  appearance  of  industrial 
prosperity  in  Germany ;  beggary  was  severely  re 
pressed,  and  if  poverty  was  better  clad  than  with  us, 
it  was  as  hungry  and  as  hopeless  in  Nuremberg  as  in 
New  York.  The  working  classes  were  kindly  and 
peaceable;  they  only  knifed  each  other  quietly  on 
Sunday  evenings  after  having  too  much  beer. 

Presently  the  stranger  rose  and  bowed  to  the 
Marches  for  good-by ;  and  as  he  walked  down  the 
aisle  of  trees  in  which  they  had  been  sitting  together, 
he  seemed  to  be  retreating  farther  and  farther  from 
such  Americanism  as  they  had  in  common.  He  had 
reverted  to  an  entirely  German  effect  of  dress  and 
figure ;  his  walk  was  slow  and  Teutonic ;  he  must  be 
a  type  of  thousands  who  have  returned  to  the  father- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  327 

land  without  wishing  to  own  themselves  its  children 
again,  and  yet  out  of  heart  with  the  only  country  left 
them. 

"  He  was  rather  pathetic,  my  dear,"  said  March,  in 
the  discomfort  he  knew  his  wife  must  be  feeling  as 
well  as  himself.  "  How  odd  to  have  the  lid  lifted 
here,  and  see  the  same  old  problems  seething  and 
bubbling  in  the  witch's  caldron  we  call  civilization  as 
we  left  simmering  away  at  home !  And  how  hard  to 
have  our  tariff  reach  out  and  snatch  the  bread  from 
the  mouths  of  those  poor  glass-workers  !  " 

"  I  thought  that  was  hard,"  she  sighed.  "  It  must 
have  been  his  bread,  too." 

"  Let's  hope  it  was  not  his  cake,  anyway.  I  sup 
pose,"  he  added,  dreamily,  "  that  what  we  used  to  like 
in  Italy  was  the  absence  of  all  the  modern  activities. 
The  Italians  didn't  re-pel  us  by  assuming  to  be  of  our 
epoch  in  the  presence  of  their  monuments ;  they  knew 
how  to  behave  as  pensive  memories.  I  wonder  if 
they're  still  as  charming." 

"  Oh,  no,"  she  returned ;  "  nothing  is  as  charming 
as  it  used  to  be.  And  now  we  need  the  charm  more 
than  ever." 

He  laughed  at  her  despair,  in  the  tacit  understanding 
they  had  lived  into  that  only  one  of  them  was  to  be 
desperate  at  a  time,  and  that  they  were  to  take  turns 
in  cheering  each  other  up.  "  Well,  perhaps  we  don't 
deserve  it.  And  I'm  not  sure  that  we  need  it  so 
much  as  we  did  when  we  were  young.  We've  got 
tougher;  we  can  stand  the  cold  facts  better  now. 
They  made  me  shiver  once,  but  now  they  give  me  a 


328  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

sort  of  agreeable  thrill.  Besides,  if  life  kept  up  itk 
pretty  illusions,  if  it  insisted  upon  being  as  charming 
as  it  used  to  be,  how  could  we  ever  bear  to  die  ? 
We've  got  that  to  consider."  He  yielded  to  the  temp 
tation  of  his  paradox,  but  he  did  not  fail  altogether 
of  the  purpose  with  which  he  began,  and  they  took 
the  trolley  back  to  their  hotel  cheerful  in  the  intrepid 
fancy  that  they  had  confronted  fate  when  they  had 
only  had  the  hardihood  to  face  a  phrase. 

They  agreed  that  now  he  ought  really  to  find  out 
something  about  the  contemporary  life  of  Nuremberg, 
and  the  next  morning  he  went  out  before  breakfast, 
and  strolled  through  some  of  the  simpler  streets,  in 
the  hope  of  intimate  impressions.  The  peasant  women, 
serving  portions  of  milk  from  house  to  house  out  of 
the  cans  in  the  little  wagons  which  they  drew  them 
selves,  were  a  touch  of  pleasing  domestic  comedy ;  a 
certain  effect  of  tragedy  imparted  itself  from  the  lam 
entations  of  the  sucking-pigs  jolted  over  the  pave 
ments  in  handcarts ;  a  certain  majesty  from  the  long 
procession  of  yellow  mail-wagons,  with  drivers  in  the 
royal  Bavarian  blue,  trooping  by  in  the  cold  small 
rain,  impassibly  dripping  from  their  glazed  hat-brims 
upon  their  uniforms.  But  he  could  not  feel  that 
these  things  were  any  of  them  very  poignantly  signif 
icant;  and  he  covered  his  retreat  from  the  actualities 
of  Nuremberg  by  visiting  the  chief  book-store  and 
buying  more  photographs  of  the  architecture  than  he 
wanted,  and  more  local  histories  than  he  should  ever 
read.  He  made  a  last  effort  for  the  contemporaneous 
life  by  asking  the  English-speaking  clerk  if  there  were 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  329 

any  literary  men  of  distinction  living  in  Nuremberg, 
and  the  clerk  said  there  was  not  one. 

He  went  home  to  breakfast  wondering  if  he  should 
be  able  to  make  his  meagre  facts  serve  with  his  wife ; 
but  he  found  her  far  from  any  wish  to  listen  to  them. 
She  was  intent  upon  a  pair  of  young  lovers,  at  a  table 
near  her  own,  who  were  so  absorbed  in  each  other 
that  they  were  proof  against  an  interest  that  must 
otherwise  have  pierced  them  through.  The  bride 
groom,  as  he  would  have  called  himself,  was  a  pretty 
little  Bavarian  lieutenant,  very  dark  and  regular,  and 
the  bride  was  as  pretty  and  as  little,  but  delicately 
blond.  Nature  had  admirably  mated  them,  and  if 
art  had  helped  to  bring  them  together  through  the 
genius  of  the  bride's  mother,  who  was  breakfasting 
with  them,  it  had  wrought  almost  as  fitly.  Mrs. 
March  queried  impartially  who  they  were,  where  they 
met,  and  how,  and  just  when  they  were  going  to  be 
married;  and  March  consented,  in  his  personal  im 
munity  from  their  romance,  to  let  it  go  on  under  his 
eyes  without  protest.  But  later,  when  they  met  the 
lovers  in  the  street,  walking  arm  in  arm,  with  the 
bride's  mother  behind  them  gloating  upon  their  bliss, 
he  said  the  woman  ought,  at  her  time  of  life,  to  be 
ashamed  of  such  folly.  She  must  know  that  this 
affair,  by  nine  chances  out  of  ten,  could  not  fail  to 
eventuate  at  the  best  in  a  marriage  as  tiresome  as 
most  other  marriages,  and  yet  she  was  abandoning 
herself  with  those  ignorant  young  people  to  the  illu 
sion  that  it  was  the  finest  and  sweetest  thing  in  life. 

"  Well,  isn't  it  ?"  his  wife  asked. 


330  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  Yes,  that's  the  worst  of  it.  It  shows  how  pov 
erty-stricken  life  really  is.  We  want  somehow  to 
believe  that  each  pair  of  lovers  will  find  the  good  we 
have  missed,  and  be  as  happy  as  we  expected  to  be." 

"  I  think  we  have  been  happy  enough,  and  that 
we've  had  as  much  good  as  was  wholesome  for  us," 
she  returned,  hurt. 

"  You're  always  so  concrete !  I  meant  us  in  the 
abstract.  But  if  you  will  be  personal,  I'll  say  that 
you've  been  as  happy  as  you  deserve,  and  got  more 
good  than  you  had  any  right  to." 

She  laughed  with  him,  and  then  they  laughed  again 
to  perceive  that  they  were  walking  arm  in  arm  too, 
like  the  lovers,  whom  they  were  insensibly  following. 

He  proposed  that  while  they  were  in  the  mood  they 
should  go  again  to  the  old  cemetery,  and  see  the 
hinged  jaw  of  the  murdered  Paumgartner,  wagging 
in  eternal  accusation  of  his  murderess.  "  It's  rather 
hard  on  her,  that  he  should  be  having  the  last  word, 
that  way,"  he  said.  "  She  was  a  woman,  no  matter 
what  mistakes  she  had  committed." 

"  That's  what  I  call  banale"  said  Mrs.  March. 

"  It  is,  rather,"  he  confessed.  "  It  makes  me  feel 
as  if  I  must  go  to  see  the  house  of  Diirer,  after  all." 

"  Well,  I  knew  we  should  have  to,  sooner  or  later." 

It  was  the  thing  that  they  had  said  would  not  do, 
in  Nuremberg,  because  everybody  did  it ;  but  now 
they  hailed  a  fiacre,  and  ordered  it  driven  to  Diirer's 
house,  which  they  found  in  a  remote  part  of  the  town 
near  a  stretch  of  the  city  wall,  varied  in  its  picturesque- 
ness  by  the  interposition  of  a  dripping  grove ;  it  was 


THEIIl    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  331 

raining  again  by  the  time  they  reached  it.  The  quar 
ter  had  lapsed  from  earlier  dignity,  and  without  being 
squalid,  it  looked  worn  and  hard  worked ;  otherwise  it 
could  hardly  have  been  different  in  Diirer's  time. 
His  dwelling,  in  no  way  impressive  outside,  amidst 
the  environing  quaintness,  stood  at  the  corner  of  a 
narrow  side-hill  street  that  sloped  cityward;  and 
within  it  was  stripped  bare  of  all  the  furniture  of  life 
belowstairs,  and  above  was  none  the  cozier  for  the 
stiff  appointment  of  a  show-house.  It  was  cavernous 
and  cold ;  but  if  there  had  been  a  fire  in  the  kitchen, 
and  a  table  laid  in  the  dining-room,  and  beds  equipped 
for  nightmare,  after  the  German  fashion,  in  the  empty 
chambers,  one  could  have  imagined  a  kindly,  simple, 
neighborly  existence  there.  It  in  no  wise  suggested 
the  calling  of  an  artist,  perhaps  because  artists  had 
not  begun  in  Diirer's  time  to  take  themselves  so  ob 
jectively  as  they  do  now,  but  it  implied  the  life  of  a 
prosperous  citizen,  and  it  expressed  the  period. 

The  Marches  wrote  their  names  in  the  visitors' 
book,  and  paid  the  visitor's  fee,  which  also  bought 
them  tickets  in  an  annual  lottery  for  a  reproduction 
of  one  of  Diirer's  pictures ;  and  then  they  came  away, 
by  no  means  dissatisfied  with  his  house.  By  its  as 
sociation  with  his  sojourns  in  Italy  it  recalled  visits 
to  other  shrines,  and  they  had  to  own  that  it  was 
really  no  worse  than  Ariosto's  house  at  Ferrara,  or 
Petrarch's  at  Arqua,  or  Michelangelo's  at  Florence. 
"  But  what  I  admire,"  he  said,  "  is  'our  futility  in  go 
ing  to  see  it.  We  expected  to  surprise  some  quality 
of  the  man  left  lying  about  in  the  house  because  he 


332          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

lived  and  died  in  it;  and  because  his  wife  kept  him 
up  so  close  there,  and  worked  him  so  hard  to  save  his 
widow  from  coming  to  want." 

"Who  said  she  did  that?" 

"  A  friend  of  his  who  hated  her.  But  he  had  to 
allow  that  she  was  a  God-fearing  woman,  and  had  a 
New  England  conscience." 

"  Well,  I  dare  say  Diirer  was  easy-going." 

"  Yes;  but  I  don't  like  her  laying  her  plans  to  sur 
vive  him ;  though  women  always  do  that." 

They  were  going  away  the  next  day,  and  they  sat 
down  that  evening  to  a  final  supper  in  such  good- 
humor  with  themselves  that  they  were  willing  to  in 
clude  a  young  couple  who  came  to  take  places  at  their 
table,  though  they  would  rather  have  been  alone. 
They  lifted  their  eyes  for  their  expected  salutation, 
and  recognized  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Leffers,  of  the  Norumbia. 

The  ladies  fell  upon  each  other  as  if  they  had  been 
mother  and  daughter;  March  and  the  young  man 
shook  hands,  in  the  feeling  of  passengers  mutually 
endeared  by  the  memories  of  a  pleasant  voyage.  They 
arrived  at  the  fact  that  Mr.  Leffers  had  received  let 
ters  in  England  from  his  partners  which  allowed  him 
to  prolong  his  wedding  journey  in  a  tour  of  the  con 
tinent,  while  their  wives  were  still  exclaiming  at  their 
encounter  in  the  same  hotel  at  Nuremberg;  and  then 
they  all  sat  down  to  have,  as  the  bride  said,  a  real 
Norumbia  time. 

She  was  one  of  those  young  wives  who  talk  always 
with  their  eyes  submissively  on  their  husbands,  no 
matter  whom  they  are  speaking  to ;  but  she  was  al- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  333 

ready  unconsciously  ruling  him  in  her  abeyance.  No 
doubt  she  was  ruling  him  for  his  good ;  she  had  a 
livelier  mind  than  he,  and  she  knew  more,  as  the 
American  wives  of  young  American  business  men 
always  do,  and  she  was  planning  wisely  for  their 
travels.  She  recognized  her  merit  in  this  devotion 
with  an  artless  candor,  which  was  typical  rather  than 
personal.  March  was  glad  to  go  out  with  Leffers  for 
a  little  stroll,  and  to  leave  Mrs.  March  to  listen  to 
Mrs.  Leffers,  who  did  not  let  them  go  without  making 
her  husband  promise  to  wrap  up  well,  and  not  get  his 
feet  wet.  She  made  March  promise  not  to  take  him 
far,  and  to  bring  him  back  early,  which  he  found 
himself  very  willing  to  do,  after  an  exchange  of  ideas 
with  Mr.  Leffers,  The  young  man  began  to  talk  about 
his  wife,  in  her  providential,  her  almost  miraculous 
adaptation  to  the  sort  of  man  he  was,  and  when  he 
had  once  begun  to  explain  what  sort  of  man  he  was, 
there  was  no  end  to  it,  till  they  rejoined  the  ladies  in 
the  reading-rooin. 


XLVII. 

THE  young  couple  came  to  the  station  to  see  the 
Marches  off  after  dinner  the  next  day ;  and  the  wife 
left  a  bank  of  flowers  on  the  seat  beside  Mrs.  March, 
who  said,  as  soon  as  they  were  gone,  "  I  believe  I 
would  rather  meet  people  of  our  own  age  after  this. 
I  used  to  think  that  you  could  keep  young  by  being 
with  young  people ;  but  I  don't,  now.  Their  world  is 
very  different  from  ours.  Our  world  doesn't  really 
exist  any  more,  but  as  long  as  we  keep  away  from 
theirs  we  needn't  realize  it.  Young  people,"  she  went 
on,  "  are  more  practical-minded  than  we  used  to  be  ; 
they're  quite  as  sentimental ;  but  I  don't  think  they 
care  so  much  for  the  higher  things.  They're  not  so 
much  brought  up  on  poetry  as  we  were,"  she  pursued. 
"  That  little  Mrs.  Leffers  would  have  read  Longfellow 
in  our  time ;  but  now  she  didn't  know  of  his  poem  on 
Nuremberg;  she  was  intelligent  enough  about  the 
place,  but  you  could  see  that  its  quaintness  was  not 
so  precious  as  it  was  to  us ;  not  so  sacred."  Her  tone 
entreated  him  to  find  more  meaning  in  her  words 
than  she  had  put  into  them.  "  They  couldn't  have  felt 
as  we  did  about  that  old  ivied  wall  and  that  grassy, 
flowery  moat  under  it ;  and  the  beautiful  Damenthor  • 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  335 

and  that  pile-up  of  the  roofs  from  the  Burg ;  and 
those  winding  streets  with  their  Gothic  facades  all 
cobwebbed  with  trolley  wires ;  and  that  yellow, 
aguish-looking  river  drowsing  through  the  town  under 
the  windows  of  those  overhanging  houses ;  and  the 
market-place,  and  the  squares  before  the  churches, 
with  their  queer  shops  in  the  nooks  and  corners  round 
them ! " 

"  I  see  what  you  mean.  But  do  you  think  it's  as 
sacred  to  us  as  it  would  have  been  twenty-five  years 
ago  ?  I  had  an  irreverent  feeling  now  and  then  that 
Nuremberg  was  overdoing  Nuremberg." 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  so  had  I.  We're  that  modern,  if  we're 
not  so  young  as  we  were." 

"  We  were  very  simple,  in  those  days." 

"  Well,  if  we  were  simple,  we  knew  it !  " 

"  Yes ;  we  used  to  like  taking  our  unconsciousness 
to  pieces  and  looking  at  it." 

"  We  had  a  good  time." 

"Too  good.  Sometimes  it  seems  as  if  it  would 
have  lasted  longer  if  it  had  not  been  so  good.  We 
might  have  our  cake  now  if  we  hadn't  eaten  it." 

"  It  would  be  mouldy,  though." 

"  I  wonder,"  he  said,  recurring  to  the  Lefferses, 
"  how  we  really  struck  them." 

"  Well,  I  don't  believe  they  thought  we  ought  to 
be  travelling  about  alone,  quite,  at  our  age." 

"  Oh,  not  so  bad  as  that !  "  After  a  moment  he 
said,  "  I  dare  say  they  don't  go  round  quarrelling  on 
their  wedding  journey,  as  we  did." 

"  Indeed  they  do  !     They  had  an  awful  quarrel  just 


336  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

before  they  got  to  Nuremberg:  about  his  wanting  to 
send  some  of  the  baggage  to  Liverpool  by  express 
that  she  wanted  to  keep  with  them.  But  she  said  it 
had  been  a  lesson,  and  they  were  never  going  to  quar 
rel  again."  The  elders  looked  at  each  other  in  the 
light  of  experience,  and  laughed.  "  Well,"  she  ended, 
"that's  one  thing  we're  through  with.  I  suppose 
we've  come  to  feel  more  alike  than  we  used  to." 

"  Or  not  to  feel  at  all.  How  did  they  settle  it  about 
the  baggage  ? " 

"  Oh  !  He  insisted  on  her  keeping  it  with  her." 
March  laughed  again,  but  this  time  he  laughed  alone, 
and  after  a  while  she  said :  "  Well,  they  gave  just  the 
right  relief  to  Nuremberg,  with  their  good,  clean 
American  philistinism.  I  don't  mind  their  thinking 
us  queer;  they  must  have  thought  Nuremberg  was 
queer." 

"  Yes.  We  oldsters  are  always  queer  to  the  young. 
We're  either  ridiculously  lively  and  chirpy,  or  we're 
ridiculously  stiff  and  grim ;  they  never  expect  to  be 
like  us,  and  wouldn't,  for  the  world.  The  worst  of  it 
is,  we  elderly  people  are  absurd  to  one  another;  we 
don't,  at  the  bottom  of  our  hearts,  believe  we're  like 
that,  when  we  meet.  I  suppose  that  arrogant  old  ass 
of  a  Triscoe  looks  upon  me  as  a  grinning  dotard." 

"  I  wonder,"  said  Mrs.  March,  "  if  she's  told  him 
yet,"  and  March  perceived  that  she  was  now  suddenly 
far  from  the  mood  of  philosophic  introspection ;  but 
he  had  no  difficulty  in  following  her. 

"  She's  had  time  enough.  But  it  was  an  awkward 
task  Burnamy  left  to  her." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  337 

"  Yes,  when  I  think  of  that,  I  can  hardly  forgive 
him  for  coming  back  in  that  way.  I  know  she  is 
dead  in  love  with  him  ;  but  she  could  only  have  ac 
cepted  him  conditionally." 

"  Conditionally  to  his  making  it  all  right  with  Stol- 
ler?" 

"  Stoller?     No!     To  her  father's  liking  it." 

"  Ah,  that's  quite  as  hard.  What  makes  you  think 
she  accepted  him  at  all  ?  " 

"  What  do  you  think  she  was  crying  about  ? " 

"  Well,  I  have  supposed  that  ladies  occasionally 
shed  tears  of  pity.  If  she  accepted  him  conditionally 
she  would  have  to  tell  her  father  about  it."  Mrs. 
March  gave  him  a  glance  of  silent  contempt,  and  he 
hastened  to  atone  for  his  stupidity.  "  Perhaps  she's 
told  him  on  the  instalment  plan.  She  may  have  be 
gun  by  confessing  that  Burnamy  had  been  in  Carls 
bad.  Poor  old  fellow,  I  wish  we  were  going  to  find 
him  in  Ansbach  !  He  could  make  things  very  smooth 
for  us." 

"  Well,  you  needn't  flatter  yourself  that  you'll  find 
him  in  Ansbach.  Pm  sure  I  don't  know  where  he  is." 

"  You  might  write  to  Miss  Triscoe  and  ask." 

"  I  think  I  shall  wait  for  Miss  Triscoe  to  write  to 
me,"  she  said,  with  dignity. 

"  Yes,  she  certainly  owes  you  that  much,  after  all 
your  suffering  for  her.  I've  asked  the  banker  in  Nu 
remberg  to  forward  our  letters  to  the  poste  restante  in 
Ansbach.  Isn't  it  good  to  see  the  crows  again,  after 
those  ravens  around  Carlsbad  ? " 

She  joined  him  in  looking  at  the  mild  autumnal 


338  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

landscape  through  the  open  window.  The  afternoon 
was  fair  and  warm,  and  in  the  level  fields  bodies  of 
soldiers  were  at  work  with  picks  and  spades,  getting 
the  ground  ready  for  the  military  mano3uvres;  they 
disturbed  among  the  stubble  foraging  parties  of  crows, 
which  rose  from  time  to  time  with  cries  of  indignant 
protest.  She  said,  with  a  smile  for  the  crows,  "  Yes. 
And  I'm  thankful  that  I've  got  nothing  on  my  con 
science,  whatever  happens,"  she  added  in  dismissal  of 
the  subject  of  Burnamy. 

"  I'm  thankful  too,  my  dear.  I'd  much  rather  have 
things  on  my  own.  I'm  more  used  to  that,  and  I  be 
lieve  I  feel  less  remorse  than  when  you're  to'  blame." 

They  might  have  been  carried  near  this  point  by 
those  telepathic  influences  which  have  as  yet  been 
so  imperfectly  studied.  It  was  only  that  morning, 
after  the  lapse  of  a  week  since  Burnamy's  furtive  re 
appearance  in  Carlsbad,  that  Miss  Triscoe  spoke  to 
her  father  about  it,  and  she  had  at  that  moment  a 
longing  for  support  and  counsel  that  might  well  have 
made  its  mystical  appeal  to  Mrs.  March. 

She  spoke  at  last  because  she  could  put  it  off  no 
longer,  rather  than  because  the  right  time  had  come. 
She  began  as  they  sat  at  breakfast.  "  Papa,  there  is 
something  that  I  have  got  to  tell  you.  It  is  some 
thing  that  you  ought  to  know ;  but  I  have  put  off  tell 
ing  you  because — " 

She  hesitated  for  the  reason,  and  "Well!"  said 
her  father,  looking  up  at  her  from  his  second  cup  of 
coffee.  "  What  is  it  ?  " 

Then  she  answered,  "  Mr.  Burnamy  has  been  here." 


SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  339 

"  In  Carlsbad  ?     When  was  he  here  ?  " 

"The  night  of  the  Emperor's  birthday.  He  came 
into  the  box  when  you  were  behind  the  scenes  with 
Mr.  March ;  afterwards  I  met  him  in  the  crowd." 

"Well?" 

"  I  thought  you  ought  to  know.  Mrs.  March  said 
I  ought  to  tell  you." 

"  Did  she  say  you  ought  to  wait  a  week  ? "  He 
gave  way  to  an  irascibility  which  he  tried  to  check,  and 
to  ask  with  indifference,  "  Why  did  he  come  back  ? " 

"  He  was  going  to  write  about  it  for  that  paper  in 
Paris."  The  girl  had  the  effect  of  gathering  her  cour 
age  up  for  a  bold  plunge.  She  looked  steadily  at  her 
father,  and  added:  "  He  said  he  came  back  because 
he  couldn't  help  it.  He — wished  to  speak  with  me. 
He  said  he  knew  he  had  no  right  to  suppose  I  cared 
anything  about  what  had  happened  with  him  and  Mr. 
Stoller.  He  wanted  to  come  back  and  tell  me — that." 

Her  father  waited  for  her  to  go  on,  but  apparently 
she  was  going  to  leave  the  word  to  him,  now.  He 
hesitated  to  take  it,  but  he  asked  at  last  with  a  mild 
ness  that  seemed  to  surprise  her,  "  Have  you  heard 
anything  from  him  since  ?  " 

"  No." 

"  Where  is  he  ? " 

"  I  don't  know.  I  told  him  I  could  not  say  what 
he  wished ;  that  I  must  tell  you  about  it." 

The  case  was  less  simple  than  it  would  once  have 
been  for  General  Triscoe.  There  was  still  his  affec 
tion  for  his  daughter,  his  wish  for  her  happiness,  but 
this  had  always  been  subordinate  to  his  sense  of  his 


340  THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

own  interest  and  comfort,  and  a  question  had  recently 
arisen  which  put  his  paternal  love  and  duty  in  a  new 
light.  He  was  no  more  explicit  with  himself  than 
other  men  are,  and  the  most  which  could  ever  be  said 
of  him  without  injustice  was  that  in  his  dependence 
upon  her  he  would  rather  have  kept  his  daughter  to 
himself  if  she  could  not  have  been  very  prosperously 
married.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  disliked  the  man 
for  whom  she  now  hardly  hid  her  liking,  he  was  not 
just  then  ready  to  go  to  extremes  concerning  him. 

"  He  was  very  anxious,"  she  went  on,  "  that  you 
should  know  just  how  it  was.  He  thinks  everything 
of  your  judgment  and — and — opinion."  The  general 
made  a  consenting  noise  in  his  throat.  "  He  said 
that  he  did  not  wish  me  to  '  whitewash  '  him  to  you. 
He  didn't  think  he  had  done  right ;  he  didn't  excuse 
himself,  or  ask  you  to  excuse  him  unless  you  could 
from  the  stand-point  of  a  gentleman." 

The  general  made  a  less  consenting  noise  in  his 
throat,  and  asked,  "  How  do  you  look  at  it,  yourself, 
Agatha?" 

"I  don't  believe  I  quite  understand  it;  but  Mrs. 
March—" 

"  Oh,  Mrs.  March  !  "  the  general  snorted. 

" — says  that  Mr.  March  does  not  think  so  badly  of 
it  as  Mr.  Burnamy  does." 

"  I  doubt  it.  At  any  rate,  I  understood  March 
quite  differently." 

"  She  says  that  he  thinks  he  behaved  very  nobly 
afterwards  when  Mr.  Stoller  wanted  him  to  help  him 
put  a  false  complexion  on  it ;  that  it  was  all  the  more 


THEIR   SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  341 

difficult  for  him  to  do  right  then,  because  of  his  re 
morse  for  what  he  had  done  before.'*  As  she  spoke 
on  she  had  become  more  eager. 

"  There's  something  in  that,"  the  general  admitted, 
with  a  candor  that  he  made  the  most  of  both  to  him 
self  and  to  her.  "  But  I  should  like  to  know  what 
Stoller  had  to  say  of  it  all.  Is  there  anything,"  he 
inquired,  "any  reason  why  I  need  be  more  explicit 
about  it,  just  now  ? " 

"  N — no.  Only,  I  thought —  He  thinks  so  much 
of  your  opinion  that — if — " 

"  Oh,  he  can  very  well  afford  to  wait.  If  he  values 
my  opinion  so  highly  he  can  give  me  time  to  make  up 
my  mind." 

"  Of  course — " 

"  And  I'm  not  responsible,"  the  general  continued, 
significantly,  "  for  the  delay  altogether.  If  you  had 
told  me  this  before —  Now,  I  don't  know  whether 
Stoller  is  still  in  town." 

He  was  not  behaving  openly  with  her ;  but  she  had 
not  behaved  openly  with  him.  She  owned  that  to 
herself,  and  she  got  what  comfort  she  could  from  his 
making  the  affair  a  question  of  what  Burnamy  had 
done  to  Stoller  rather  than  of  what  Burnamy  had  said 
to  her,  and  what  she  had  answered  him.  If  she  was 
not  perfectly  clear  as  to  what  she  wanted  to  do,  or 
wished  to  have  happen,  there  was  now  time  and  place 
in  which  she  could  delay  and  make  sure.  The  ac 
cepted  theory  of  such  matters  is  that  people  know 
their  minds  from  the  beginning,  and  that  they  do  not 
change  them.  But  experience  seems  to  contradict 


342  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

this  theory,  or  else  people  often  act  contrary  to  their 
convictions  and  impulses.  If  the  statistics  were  ac 
cessible,  it  might  be  found  that  many  potential  en 
gagements  hovered  in  a  doubtful  air,  and  before  they 
touched  the  earth  in  actual  promise  were  dissipated 
by  the  play  of  meteorological  chances. 

When  General  Triscoe  put  down  his  napkin  in  ris 
ing  he  said  that  he  would  step  round  to  Pupp's  and 
see  if  Stoller  were  still  there.  But  on  the  way  he 
stepped  up  to  Mrs.  Adding's  hotel  on  the  hill,  and  he 
came  back,  after  an  interval  which  he  seemed  not  to 
have  found  long,  to  report  rather  casually  that  Stoller 
had  left  Carlsbad  the  day  before.  By  this  time  the 
fact  seemed  not  to  concern  Agatha  herself  very  vitally. 

He  asked  if  the  Marches  had  left  any  address  with 
her,  and  she  answered  that  they  had  not.  They  were 
going  to  spend  a  few  days  in  Nuremberg,  and  then 
push  on  to  Holland  for  Mr.  March's  after-cure.  There 
was  no  relevance  in  his  question  unless  it  intimated 
his  belief  that  she  was  in  confidential  correspondence 
with  Mrs.  March,  and  she  met  this  by  saying  that  she 
was  going  to  write  her  in  care  of  their  bankers ;  she 
asked  whether  he  wished  to  send  any  word. 

"  No.  I  understand,"  he  intimated,  "  that  there  is 
nothing  at  all  in  the  nature  of  a — a — an  understand 
ing,  then,  with — 

"  No,  nothing." 

"  Hm  !  "  The  general  waited  a  moment.  Then  he 
ventured,  "  Do  you  care  to  say — do  you  wish  me  to 
know — how  he  took  it?" 

The  tears  came  into  the  girl's  eyes,  but  she  gov- 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  343 

erned  herself  to  say,  "  He — he  was  disappointed." 
"  He  had  no  right  to  be  disappointed." 
It  was  a  question,  and  she  answered :  "  He  thought 

he  had.     He  said — that  he  wouldn't — trouble  me  any 

more." 

The  general  did  not  ask  at  once,  "  And  you  don't 

know  where  he  is  now — you  haven't  heard  anything 

from  him  since  ?  " 

Agatha  flashed  through  her  tears,  "  Papa  !  " 

"  Oh !     I  beg  your  pardon.     I  think  you  told  me." 


XLVIII. 

AT  the  first  station  where  the  train  stopped,  a  young 
German  bowed  himself  into  the  compartment  with 
the  Marches,  and  so  visibly  resisted  an  impulse  to 
smoke  that  March  begged  him  to  light  his  cigarette. 
In  the  talk  which  this  friendly  overture  led  to  between 
them  he  explained  that  he  was  a  railway  architect,  em 
ployed  by  the  government  on  that  line  of  road,  and 
was  travelling  officially.  March  spoke  of  Nuremberg; 
he  owned  the  sort  of  surfeit  he  had  suffered  from  its 
excessive  medievalism,  and  the  young  man  said  it  was 
part  of  the  new  imperial  patriotism  to  cherish  the 
Gothic  throughout  Germany ;  no  other  sort  of  archi 
tecture  was  permitted  in  Nuremberg.  But  they  would 
find  enough  classicism  at  Ansbach,  he  promised  them, 
and  he  entered  with  sympathetic  intelligence  into 
their  wish  to  see  this  former  capital  when  March  told 
him  they  were  going  to  stop  there,  in  hopes  of  some 
thing  typical  of  the  old  disjointed  Germany  of  the 
petty  principalities,  the  little  paternal  despotisms  now 
extinct. 

As  they  talked  on,  partly  in  German  and  partly  in 
English,  their  purpose  in  visiting  Ansbach  appeared 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  345 

to  the  Marches  more  meditated  than  it  was.  In  fact 
it  was  somewhat  accidental ;  Ansbach  was  near  Nu 
remberg  ;  it  was  not  much  out  of  the  way  to  Holland. 
They  took  more  and  more  credit  to  themselves  for  a 
reasoned  and  definite  motive,  in  the  light  of  their 
companion's  enthusiasm  for  the  place,  and  its  charm 
began  for  them  with  the  drive  from  the  station 
through  streets  whose  sentiment  was  both  Italian  and 
French,  and  where  there  was  a  yellowish  cast  in  the 
gray  of  the  architecture  which  was  almost  Mantuan. 
They  rested  their  sensibilities,  so  bruised  and  fretted 
by  Gothic  angles  and  points,  against  the  smooth  sur 
faces  of  the  prevailing  classicistic  facades  of  the 
houses  as  they  passed,  and  when  they  arrived  at  their 
hotel,  an  old  mansion  of  Versailles  type,  fronting  on 
a  long  irregular  square  planted  with  pollard  sycamores, 
they  said  that  it  might  as  well  have  been  Lucca. 

The  archway  and  stairway  of  the  hotel  were  draped 
with  the  Bavarian  colors,  and  they  were  obscurely 
flattered  to  learn  that  Prince  Leopold,  the  brother  of 
the  Prince-Regent  of  the  kingdom,  had  taken  rooms 
there,  on  his  way  to  the  manoeuvres  at  Nuremberg, 
and  was  momently  expected  with  his  suite.  They 
realized  that  they  were  not  of  the  princely  party, 
however,  when  they  were  told  that  he  had  sole  posses 
sion  of  the  dining-room,  and  they  went  out  to  another 
hotel,  and  had  their  supper  in  keeping  delightfully 
native.  People  seemed  to  come  there  to  write  their 
letters  and  make  up  their  accounts,  as  well  as  to  eat 
their  suppers ;  they  called  for  stationery  like  charac 
ters  in  old  comedy,  and  the  clatter  of  crockery  and 


346  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

the  scratching  of  pens  went  on  together;  and  fortune 
offered  the  Marches  a  delicate  reparation  for  their 
exclusion  from  their  own  hotel  in  the  cold  popular  re 
ception  of  the  prince  which  they  got  back  just  in  time 
to  witness.  A  very  small  group  of  people,  mostly 
women  and  boys,  had  gathered  to  see  him  arrive,  but 
there  was  no  cheering  or  any  sign  of  public  interest. 
Perhaps  he  personally  merited  none ;  he  looked  a  dull, 
sad  man,  with  his  plain,  stubbed  features ;  and  after 
he  had  mounted  to  his  apartment,  the  officers  of  his 
staff  stood  quite  across  the  landing,  and  barred  the 
passage  of  the  Americans,  ignoring  even  Mrs.  March's 
presence,  as  they  talked  together. 

"  Well,  my  dear,"  said  her  husband,  "  here  you  have 
it  at  last.  This  is  what  you've  been  living  for,  ever 
since  we  came  to  Germany.  It's  a  great  moment." 

"  Yes.     What  are  you  going  to  do  ?  " 

"Who?  I?  Oh,  nothing!  This  is  your  affair; 
it's  for  you  to  act," 

If  she  had  been  young,  she  might  have  withered 
them  with  a  glance ;  she  doubted  now  if  her  dim  eyes 
would  have  any  such  power ;  but  she  advanced  stead 
ily  upon  them,  and  then  the  officers  seemed  aware  of 
her,  and  stood  aside. 

March  always  insisted  that  they  stood  aside  apolo 
getically,  but  she  held  as  firmly  that  they  stood  aside 
impertinently,  or  at  least  indifferently,  and  that  the 
insult  to  her  American  womanhood  was  perfectly 
ideal.  It  is  true  that  nothing  of  the  kind  happened 
again  during  their  stay  at  the  hotel ;  the  prince's 
officers  were  afterwards  about  in  the  corridors  and  on 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  347 

the  stairs,  but  they  offered  no  shadow  of  obstruction 
to  her  going  and  coining,  and  the  landlord  himself 
was  not  so  preoccupied  with  his  highhotes  but  he 
had  time  to  express  his  grief  that  she  had  been  obliged 
to  go  out  for  supper. 

They  satisfied  the  passion  for  the  little  obsolete 
capital  which  had  been  growing  upon  them  by  stroll 
ing  past  the  old  Residenz  at  an  hour  so  favorable  for 
a  first  impression.  It  loomed  in  the  gathering  dusk 
even  vaster  than  it  was,  and  it  was  really  vast  enough 
for  the  pride  of  a  King  of  France,  much  more  a  Mar 
grave  of  Ansbach.  Time  had  blackened  and  blotched 
its  coarse  limestone  walls  to  one  complexion  with  the 
statues  swelling  and  strutting  in  the  figure  of  Roman 
legionaries  before  it,  and  standing  out  against  the 
evening  sky  along  its  balustraded  roof,  and  had  soft 
ened  to  the  right  tint  the  stretch  of  half  a  dozen 
houses  with  mansard  roofs  and  renaissance  facades 
obsequiously  in  keeping  with  the  Versailles  ideal  of 
a  Residenz.  In  the  rear,  and  elsewhere  at  fit  distance 
from  its  courts,  a  native  architecture  prevailed ;  and 
at  no  great  remove  the  Marches  found  themselves  in 
a  simple  German  town  again.  There  they  stumbled 
upon  a  little  bookseller's  shop  blinking  in  a  quiet  cor 
ner,  and  bought  three  or  four  guides  and  small  his 
tories  of  Ansbach,  which  they  carried  home,  and 
studied  between  drowsing  and  waking.  The  wonder 
ful  German  syntax  seems  at  its  most  enigmatical  in 
this  sort  of  literature,  and  sometimes  they  lost  them 
selves  in  its  labyrinths  completely,  and  only  made 
their  way  perilously  out  with  the  help  of  cumulative 


348  THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

declensions,  past  articles  and  adjectives  blindly  seek 
ing  their  nouns,  to  long-procrastinated  verbs  dancing 
like  swamp-fires  in  the  distance.  They  emerged  a 
little  less  ignorant  than  they  went  in,  and  better  quali 
fied  than  they  would  otherwise  have  been  for  their 
second  visit  to  the  Schloss,  which  they  paid  early  the 
next  morning. 

They  were  so  early,  indeed,  that  when  they  mounted 
from  the  great  inner  court,  much  too  big  for  Ansbach, 
if  not  for  the  building,  and  rung  the  custodian's  bell, 
a  smiling  maid  who  let  them  into  an  ante-room,  where 
she  kept  on  picking  over  vegetables  for  her  dinner, 
said  the  custodian  was  busy,  and  could  not  be  seen 
till  ten  o'clock.  She  seemed,  in  her  nook  of  the  pre 
tentious  pile,  as  innocently  unconscious  of  its  history 
as  any  hen-sparrow  who  had  built  her  nest  in  some 
coign  of  its  architecture ;  and  her  friendly,  peaceful 
domesticity  remained  a  wholesome  human  background 
to  the  tragedies  and  comedies  of  the  past,  and  held 
them  in  a  picturesque  relief  in  which  they  were  alike 
tolerable  and  even  charming. 

The  history  of  Ansbach  strikes  its  roots  in  the  soil 
of  fable,  and  aboveground  is  a  gnarled  and  twisted 
growth  of  good  and  bad  from  the  time  of  the  Great 
Charles  to  the  time  of  the  Great  Frederick.  Between 
these  times  she  had  her  various  rulers,  ecclesiastical 
and  secular,  in  various  forms  of  vassalage  to  the  em 
pire;  but  for  nearly  four  centuries  her  sovereignty 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  margraves,  who  reigned  in  a 
constantly  increasing  splendor  till  the  last  sold  her 
outright  to  the  King  of  Prussia  in  1791,  and  went  to 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  349 

live  in  England  on  the  proceeds.  She  had  taken  her 
part  in  the  miseries  and  glorias  of  the  wars  that  des 
olated  Germany,  but  after  the  Reformation,  when  she 
turned  from  the  ancient  faith  to  which  she  owed  her 
cloistered  origin  under  St.  Gumpertus,  her  people  had 
peace  except  when  their  last  prince  sold  them  to  fight 
the  battles  of  others.  It  is  in  this  last  transaction 
that  her  history,  almost  in  the  moment  when  she 
ceased  to  have  a  history  of  her  own,  links  to  that  of 
the  modern  world,  and  that  it  came  home  to  the 
Marches  in  their  national  character;  for  two  thousand 
of  those  poor  Ansbach  mercenaries  were  bought  up 
by  England  and  sent  to  put  down  a  rebellion  in  her 
American  colonies. 

Humanly,  they  were  more  concerned  for  the  Last 
Margrave,  because  of  certain  qualities  which  made 
him  the  Best  Margrave,  in  spite  of  the  defects  of  his 
qualities.  He  was  the  son  of  the  Wild  Margrave, 
equally  known  in  the  Ansbach  annals,  who  may  not 
have  been  the  Worst  Margrave,  but  who  had  certainly 
a  bad  trick  of  putting  his  subjects  to  death  without 
trial,  and  in  cases  where  there  was  special  haste,  with 
his  own  hand.  He  sent  his  son  to  the  university  at 
Utrecht  because  he  believed  that  the  republican  in 
fluences  in  Holland  would  be  wholesome  for  him,  and 
then  he  sent  him  to  travel  in  Italy ;  but  when  the  boy 
came  home  looking  frail  and  sick,  the  Wild  Margrave 
charged  his  official  travelling  companion  with  neglect, 
and  had  the  unhappy  Hofrath  Meyer  hanged  without 
process  for  this  crime.  One  of  the  gentlemen  of  his 
realm,  for  a  pasquinade  on  the  Margrave,  was  brought 


350  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

to  the  scaffold;  he  had,  at  various  times,  twenty-two 
of  his  soldiers  shot  with  arrows  and  bullets  or  hanged 
for  desertion,  besides  many  whose  penalties  his  clem 
ency  commuted  to  the  loss  of  an  ear  or  a  nose ;  a 
Hungarian  who  killed  his  hunting-dog,  he  had  broken 
alive  on  the  wheel.  A  soldier's  wife  was  hanged  for 
complicity  in  a  case  of  desertion  ;  a  young  soldier  who 
eloped  with  the  girl  he  loved  was  brought  to  Ansbach 
from  a  neighboring  town,  and  hanged  with  her  on  the 
same  gallows.  A  sentry  at  the  door  of  one  of  the 
Margrave's  castles  amiably  complied  with  the  Mar 
grave's  request  to  let  him  take  his  gun  for  a  moment, 
on  the  pretence  of  wishing  to  look  at  it.  For  this 
breach  of  discipline  the  prince  covered  him  with  abuse 
and  gave  him  over  to  his  hussars,  who  bound  him  to 
a  horse's  tail  and  dragged  him  through  the  streets; 
he  died  of  his  injuries.  The  kennel-master  who  had 
charge  of  the  Margrave's  dogs  was  accused  of  neg 
lecting  them:  without  further  inquiry  the  Margrave 
rode  to  the  man's  house  and  shot  him  down  on  his 
own  threshold.  A  shepherd  who  met  the  Margrave 
on  a  shying  horse  did  not  get  his  flock  out  of  the 
way  quickly  enough ;  the  Margrave  demanded  the  pis 
tols  of  a  gentleman  in  his  company,  but  he  answered 
that  they  were  not  loaded,  and  the  shepherd's  life  was 
saved.  As  they  returned  home  the  gentleman  fired 
them  off.  "  What  does  that  mean  ?  "  cried  the  Mar 
grave,  furiously.  "  It  means,  gracious  lord,  that  you 
will  sleep  sweeter  to-night,  for  not  having  heard  my 
pistols  an  hour  sooner." 

From  this  it  appears  that  the  gracious  lord  had  his 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  351 

moments  of  regret ;  but  perhaps  it  is  not  altogether 
strange  that  when  he  died,  the  whole  population 
"  stormed  through  the  streets  to  meet  his  funeral 
train,  not  in  awe-stricken  silence  to  meditate  on  the 
fall  of  human  grandeur,  but  to  unite  in  an  eager  tu 
mult  of  rejoicing,  as  if  some  cruel  brigand  who  had 
long  held  the  city  in  terror  were  delivered  over  to 
them  bound  and  in  chains."  For  nearly  thirty  years 
this  blood-stained  miscreant  had  reigned  over  his 
hapless  people  in  a  sovereign  plenitude  of  power, 
which  by  the  theory  of  German  imperialism  in  our 
day  is  still  a  divine  right. 

They  called  him  the  Wild  Margrave,  in  their  in 
stinctive  revolt  from  the  belief  that  any  man  not  un- 
tamably  savage  could  be  guilty  of  his  atrocities ;  and 
they  called  his  son  the  Last  Margrave,  with  a  touch 
of  the  poetry  which  perhaps  records  a  regret  for  their 
extinction  as  a  state.  He  did  not  harry  them  as  his 
father  had  done ;  his  mild  rule  was  the  effect  partly 
of  the  indifference  and  distaste  for  his  country  bred 
by  his  long  sojourns  abroad ;  but  doubtless  also  it 
was  the  effect  of  a  kindly  nature.  Even  in  the  matter 
of  selling  a  few  thousands  of  them  to  fight  the  battles 
of  a  bad  cause  on  the  other  side  of  the  world,  he  had 
the  best  of  motives,  and  faithfully  applied  the  pro 
ceeds  to  the  payment  of  the  state  debt  and  the  em 
bellishment  of  the  capital. 

His  mother  was  a  younger  sister  of  Frederick  the 
Great,  and  was  so  constantly  at  war  with  her  husband 
that  probably  she  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  marriage 
which  the  Wild  Margrave  forced  upon  their  son. 


352  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

Love  certainly  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  and  the  Last 
Margrave  early  escaped  from  it  to  the  society  of  Mile. 
Clairon,  the  great  French  tragedienne,  whom  he  met 
in  Paris,  and  whom  he  persuaded  to  come  and  make 
her  home  with  him  in  Ansbach.  She  lived  there 
seventeen  years,  and  though  always  an  alien,  she  bore 
herself  with  kindness  to  all  classes,  and  is  still  re 
membered  there  by  the  roll  of  butter  which  calls  itself 
a  Klarungswecke  in  its  imperfect  French. 

No  roll  of  butter  records  in  faltering  accents  the 
name  of  the  brilliant  and  disdainful  English  lady  who 
replaced  this  poor  tragic  muse  in  the  Margrave's 
heart,  though  the  lady  herself  lived  to  be  the  last 
Margravine  of  Ansbach,  where  everybody  seems  to 
have  hated  her  with  a  passion  which  she  doubtless 
knew  how  to  return.  She  was  the  daughter  of  the 
Earl  of  Berkeley,  and  the  wife  of  Lord  Craven,  a  suf 
ficiently  unfaithful  and  unworthy  nobleman  by  her 
account,  from  whom  she  was  living  apart  when  the 
Margrave  asked  her  to  his  capital.  There  she  set 
herself  to  oust  Mile.  Clairon  with  sneers  and  jests  for 
the  theatrical  style  which  the  actress  could  not  out 
live.  Lady  Craven  said  she  was  sure  Clairon's  night 
cap  must  be  a  crown  of  gilt  paper ;  and  when  Clairon 
threatened  to  kill  herself,  and  the  Margrave  was 
alarmed,  "  You  forget,"  said  Lady  Craven,  "  that  act 
resses  only  stab  themselves  under  their  sleeves." 

She  drove  Clairon  from  Ansbach,  and  the  great 
tragedienne  returned  to  Paris,  where  she  remained 
true  to  her  false  friend,  and  from  time  to  time  wrote 
him  letters  full  of  magnanimous  counsel  and  generous 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  353 

tenderness.  But  she  could  not  have  been  so  good 
company  as  Lady  Craven,  who  was  a  very  gifted  per 
son,  and  knew  how  to  compose  songs  and  sing  them, 
and  write  comedies  and  play  them,  and  who  could 
keep  the  Margrave  amused  in  many  ways.  When  his 
loveless  and  childless  wife  died  he  married  the  Eng 
lish  woman,  but  he  grew  more  and  more  weary  of  his 
dull  little  court  and  his  dull  little  country,  and  after  a 
while,  considering  the  uncertain  tenure  sovereigns  had 
of  their  heads  since  the  French  King  had  lost  his,  and 
the  fact  that  he  had  no  heirs  to  follow  him  in  his 
principality,  he  resolved  to  cede  it  for  a  certain  sum 
to  Prussia.  To  this  end  his  new  wife's  urgence  was 
perhaps  not  wanting.  They  went  to  England,  where 
she  outlived  him  ten  years,  and  wrote  her  memoirs. 

The  custodian  of  the  Schloss  came  at  last,  and  the 
Marches  saw  instantly  that  he  was  worth  waiting  for. 
He  was  as  vainglorious  of  the  palace  as  any  grand- 
monarching  margrave  of  them  all.  He  could  not 
have  been  more  personally  superb  in  showing  their 
different  effigies  if  they  had  been  his  own  family  por 
traits,  and  he  would  not  spare  the  strangers  a  single 
splendor  of  the  twenty  vast,  handsome,  tiresome,  Ver 
sailles-like  rooms  he  led  them  through.  The  rooms 
were  fatiguing  physically,  but  so  poignantly  interest 
ing  that  Mrs.  March  would  not  have  missed,  though 
she  perished  of  her  pleasure,  one  of  the  things  she 
saw.  She  had  for  once  a  surfeit  of  highhoting  in  the 
pictures,  the  porcelains,  the  thrones  and  canopies,  the 
i  tapestries,  the  historical  associations  with  the  mar 
graves  and  their  marriages,  with  the  Great  Frederick 
W 


354  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

and  the  Great  Napoleon.  The  Great  Napoleon's  man 
Bernadotte  made  the  Schloss  his  headquarters  when 
he  occupied  Ansbach  after  Austerlitz,  and  here  he 
completed  his  arrangements  for  taking  her  bargain 
from  Prussia  and  handing  it  over  to  Bavaria,  with 
whom  it  still  remains.  Twice  the  Great  Frederick  had 
sojourned  in  the  palace,  visiting  his  sister  Louise,  the 
wife  of  the  Wild  Margrave,  and  more  than  once  it 
had  welcomed  her  next  neighbor  and  sister  Wilhel- 
mina,  the  Margravine  of  Baireuth,  whose  autobio 
graphic  voice,  piercingly  plaintive  and  reproachful, 
seemed  to  quiver  in  the  air.  Here,  oddly  enough,  the 
spell  of  the  Wild  Margrave  weakened  in  the  presence 
of  his  portrait,  which  signally  failed  to  justify  his 
fame  of  furious  tyrant.  That  seems,  indeed,  to  have 
been  rather  the  popular  and  historical  conception  of 
him  than  the  impression  he  made  upon  his  exalted 
contemporaries.  The  Margravine  of  Baireuth  at  any 
rate  could  so  far  excuse  her  poor  blood-stained  broth 
er-in-law  as  to  say:  "The  Margrave  of  Ansbach  .  .  . 
was  a  young  prince  who  had  been  very  badly  educated. 
He  continually  ill-treated  my  sister ;  they  led  the  life 
of  cat  and  dog.  My  sister,  it  is  true,  was  sometimes 
in  fault.  .  .  .  Her  education  had  been  very  bad.  .  . 
She  was  married  at  fourteen." 

At  parting,  the  custodian  told  the  Marches  that  he 
would  easily  have  known  them  for  Americans  by  the 
handsome  fee  they  gave  him ;  they  came  away 
flown  with  his  praise;  and  their  national  vanity  was 
again  flattered  when  they  got  out  into  the  principal 
square  of  Ansbach.  There,  in  a  bookseller's  window, 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  355 

they  found  among  the  pamphlets  teaching  different 
languages  without  a  master,  one  devoted  to  the  Amer- 
ikanische  Spraehe  as  distinguished  from  the  Englische 
Sprache.  That  there  could  be  no  mistake,  the  cover 
was  printed  with  colors  in  a  German  ideal  of  the  star- 
spangled  banner;  and  March  said  he  always  knew 
that  we  had  a  language  of  our  own,  and  that  now  he 
was  going  in  to  buy  that  pamphlet  and  find  out  what 
it  was  like.  He  asked  the  young  shop-woman  how 
it  differed  from  English,  which  she  spoke  fairly  well 
from  having  lived  eight  years  in  Chicago.  She  said 
that  it  differed  from  the  English  mainly  in  emphasis 
and  pronunciation.  "  For  instance,  the  English  say 
*  Half  past,'  and  the  Americans  4  Half  past ' ;  the 
English  say  laht  and  the  Americans  say  late" 

The  weather  had  now  been  clear  quite  long  enough, 
and  it  was  raining  again,  a  fine,  bitter,  piercing  drizzle. 
They  asked  the  girl  if  it  always  rained  in  Ansbach; 
and  she  owned  that  it  nearly  always  did.  She  said 
that  sometimes  she  longed  for  a  little  American  sum 
mer  ;  that  it  was  never  quite  warm  in  Ansbach ;  and 
when  they  had  got  out  into  the  rain,  March  said :  "  It 
was  very  nice  to  stumble  on  Chicago  in  an  Ansbach 
book-store.  You  ought  to  have  told  her  you  had  a 
married  daughter  in  Chicago.  Don't  miss  another 
such  chance." 

"  We  shall  need  another  bag  if  we  keep  on  buying 
books  at  this  rate,"  said  his  wife  with  tranquil  irrele 
vance  ;  and  not  to  give  him  time  for  protest,  she 
pushed  him  into  a  shop  where  the  valises  in  the  win 
dow  perhaps  suggested  her  thought.  March  made 


356  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

haste  to  forestall  her  there  by  saying  they  were  Amer 
icans,  but  the  mistress  of  the  shop  seemed  to  have 
her  misgivings,  and  "  Born  Americans,  perhaps  ? "  she 
ventured.  She  had  probably  never  met  any  but  the 
naturalized  sort,  and  supposed  these  were  the  only 
sort.  March  re-assured  her,  and  then  she  said  she 
had  a  son  living  in  Jersey  City,  and  she  made  March 
take  his  address  that  he  might  tell  him  he  had  seen 
his  mother  ;  she  had  apparently  no  conception  what  a 
great  way  Jersey  City  is  from  New  York. 

Mrs.  March  would  not  take  his  arm  when  they  came 
out.  "  Now,  that  is  what  I  never  can  get  used  to  in 
you,  Basil,  and  I've  tried  to  palliate  it  for  twenty- 
seven  years.  You  know  you  won't  look  up  that  poor 
woman's  son !  Why  did  you  let  her  think  you 
would  ? " 

"  How  could  I  tell  her  I  wouldn't  ?  Perhaps  I 
shall." 

"  No,  no !  You  never  will.  I  know  you're  good 
and  kind,  and  that's  why  I  can't  understand  your  be 
ing  so  cruel.  When  we  get  back,  how  will  you  ever 
find  time  to  go  over  to  Jersey  City  ? " 

He  could  not  tell,  but  at  last  he  said  :  "  I'll  tell  you 
what !  You  must  keep  me  up  to  it.  You  know  how 
much  you  enjoy  making  me  do  my  duty,  and  this 
will  be  such  a  pleasure  !  " 

She  laughed  forlornly,  but  after  a  moment  she  took 
his  arm  ;  and  he  began,  from  the  example  of  this  good 
mother,  to  philosophize  the  continuous  simplicity  and 
sanity  of  the  people  of  Ansbach  under  all  their  civic 
changes.  Saints  and  soldiers,  knights  and  barons, 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  357 

margraves,  princes,  kings,  emperors,  had  come  and 
gone,  and  left  their  single-hearted,  friendly  subject- 
folk  pretty  much  what  they  found  them.  The  people 
had  suffered  and  survived  through  a  thousand  wars, 
and  apparently  prospered  on  under  all  governments 
and  misgovernments.  When  the  court  was  most 
French,  most  artificial,  most  vicious,  the  citizen  life 
must  have  remained  immutably  German,  dull,  and 
kind.  After  all,  he  said,  humanity  seemed  every 
where  to  be  pretty  safe,  and  pretty  much  the  same. 

uYes,  that  is  all  very  well,"  she  returned,  uand 
you  can  theorize  interestingly  enough  ;  but  I'm  afraid 
that  poor  mother,  there,  had  no  more  reality  for  you 
than  those  people  in  the  past.  You  appreciate  her  as 
a  type,  and  you  don't  care  for  her  as  a  human  being. 
You're  nothing  but  a  dreamer,  after  all.  I  don't 
blame  you,"  she  went  on.  "  It's  your  temperament, 
arid  you  can't  change,  ndw." 

"  I  may  change  for  the  worse,"  he  threatened.  "  I 
think  I  have,  already.  I  don't  believe  I  could  stand 
up  to  Dryfoos,  now,  as  I  did  for  poor  old  Lindau, 
when  I  risked  your  bread  and  butter  for  his.  I  look 
back  in  wonder  and  admiration  at  myself.  I've  stead 
ily  lost  touch  with  life  since  then.  I'm  a  trifler,  a 
dilettante,  and  an  amateur  of  the  right  and  the  good 
as  I  used  to  be  when  I  was  young.  Oh,  I  have  the 
grace  to  be  troubled  at  times,  now,  and  once  I  never 
was.  It  never  occurred  to  me  then  that  the  world 
wasn't  made  to  interest  me,  or  at  the  best  to  instruct 
me,  but  it  does,  now,  at  times." 

She  always  came  to  his  defence  when  he  accused 


358  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

himself ;  it  was  the  best  ground  he  could  take  with 
her.  "  I  think  you  behaved  very  well  with  Burnamy. 
You  did  your  duty  then." 

"  Did  I  ?  I'm  not  so  sure.  At  any  rate,  it's  the 
last  time  I  shall  do  it.  I've  served  my  term.  I  think 
I  should  tell  him  that  he  was  all  right  in  that  busi 
ness  with  Stoller,  if  I  were  to  meet  him,  now." 

"  Isn't  it  strange,"  she  said,  provisionally,  "  that 
we  don't  come  upon  a  trace  of  him  anywhere  in  Ans- 
bach  ? " 

"  Ah,  you've  been  hoping  he  would  turn  up  !  " 

"  Yes.  I  don't  deny  it.  I  feel  very  unhappy  about 
him." 

"  I  don't.  He's  too  much  like  me.  He  would  have 
been  quite  capable  of  promising  that  poor  woman  to 
look  up  her  son  in  Jersey  City.  When  I  think  of 
that,  I  have  no  patience  with  Burnamy." 

"  I  am  going  to  ask  the  landlord  about  him,  now 
he's  got  rid  of  his  highhotes,"  said  Mrs.  March. 


XLIX. 

THEY  went  home  to  their  hotel  for  their  mid-day 
dinner,  and  to  the  comfort  of  having  it  nearly  all  to 
themselves.  Prince  Leopold  had  risen  early,  like  all 
the  hard-working  potentates  of  the  continent,  and  got 
away  to  the  manoeuvres  somewhere  at  six  o'clock ;  the 
decorations  had  been  removed,  and  the  court-yard 
where  the  hired  coach  and  pair  of  the  prince  had 
rolled  in  the  evening  before  had  only  a  few  majestic 
ducks  waddling  about  in  it  and  quacking  together,  in 
different  to  the  presence  of  a  yellow  mail-wagon,  on 
which  the  driver  had  been  apparently  dozing  till  the 
hour  of  noon  should  sound.  He  sat  there  immovable, 
but  at  the  last  stroke  of  the  clock  he  woke  up  and 
drove  vigorously  away  to  the  station. 

The  dining-room  which  they  had  been  kept  out  of 
by  the  prince  the  night  before  was  not  such  as  to 
embitter  the  sense  of  their  wrong  by  its  splendor. 
After  all,  the  tastes  of  royalty  must  be  simple,  if  the 
prince  might  have  gone  to  the  Schloss  and  had  chosen 
rather  to  stay  at  this  modest  hotel ;  but  perhaps  the 
Schloss  was  reserved  for  more  immediate  royalty  than 


360  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

the  brothers  of  prince-regents ;  and  in  that  case  he 
could  not  have  done  better  than  dine  at  the  Golden 
Star.  If  he  paid  no  more  than  two  marks,  he  dined 
as  cheaply  as  a  prince  could  wish,  and  as  abundantly. 
The  wine  at  Ansbach  was  rather  thin  and  sour,  but 
the  bread,  March  declared,  was  the  best  bread  in  the 
whole  world,  not  excepting  the  bread  of  Carlsbad. 

After  dinner  the  Marches  had  some  of  the  local 
pastry,  not  so  incomparable  as  the  bread,  with  their 
coffee,  which  they  had  served  them  in  a  pavilion  of 
the  beautiful  garden  remaining  to  the  hotel  from  the 
time  when  it  was  a  patrician  mansion.  The  garden 
had  roses  in  it  and  several  sorts  of  late  summer  flow 
ers,  as  well  as  ripe  cherries,  currants,  grapes,  and  a 
Virginia-creeper  red  with  autumn,  all  harmoniously 
contemporaneous,  as  they  might  easily  be  in  a  climate 
where  no  one  of  the  seasons  can  very  well  know  itself 
from  the  others.  It  had  not  been  raining  for  half  an 
hour,  and  the  sun  was  scalding  hot,  so  that  the  shel 
ter  of  their  roof  was  very  grateful,  and  the  puddles  of 
the  paths  were  drying  up  with  the  haste  which  pud 
dles  have  to  make  in  Germany,  between  rains,  if  they 
are  ever  going  to  dry  up  at  all. 

The  landlord  came  out  to  see  if  they  were  well 
served,  and  he  was  sincerely  obliging  in  the  English 
he  had  learned  as  a  waiter  in  London.  Mrs.  March 
made  haste  to  ask  him  if  a  young  American  of  the 
name  of  Burnamy  had  been  staying  with  him  a  few 
weeks  before;  and  she  described  Burnamy's  beauty 
and  amiability  so  vividly  that  the  landlord,  if  he  had 
been  a  woman,  could  not  have  failed  to  remember 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  361 

him.  But  he  failed,  with  a  real  grief,  apparently, 
and  certainly  a  real  politeness,  to  recall  either  his 
name  or  his  person.  The  landlord  was  an  intelli 
gent,  good-looking  young  fellow  ;  he  told  them  that 
he  was  lately  married,  and  they  liked  him  so  much 
that  they  were  sorry  to  see  him  afterwards  privately 
boxing  the  ears  of  the  piccolo,  the  waiter's  little  un 
derstudy.  Perhaps  the  piccolo  deserved  it,  but  they 
would  rather  not  have  witnessed  his  punishment;  his 
being  in  a  dress-coat  seemed  to  make  it  also  an  indig 
nity. 

In  the  late  afternoon  they  went  to  the  cafe  in  the 
old  Orangery  of  the  Schloss  for  a  cup  of  tea,  and 
found  themselves  in  the  company  of  several  Ansbach 
ladies  who  had  brought  their  work,  in  the  evident 
habit  of  coming  there  every  afternoon  for  their  coffee 
and  for  a  dish  of  gossip.  They  were  kind,  uncomely, 
motherly-looking  bodies;  one  of  them  combed  her 
hair  at  the  table ;  and  they  all  sat  outside  of  the  cafe 
with  their  feet  on  the  borders  of  the  puddles  which 
had  not  dried  up  there  in  the  shade  of  the  building. 
A  deep  lawn,  darkened  at  its  farther  edge  by  the  long 
shadows  of  trees,  stretched  before  them  with  the 
sunset  light  on  it,  and  it  was  all  very  quiet  and 
friendly.  The  tea  brought  to  the  Marches  was  brewed 
from  some  herb  apparently  of  native  growth,  with  bits 
of  what  looked  like  willow  leaves  in  it,  but  it  was 
flavored  with  a  clove  in  each  cup,  and  they  sat  con 
tentedly  over  it  and  tried  to  make  out  what  the  Ans 
bach  ladies  were  talking  about.  These  had  recognized 
the  strangers  for  Americans,  and  one  of  them  ex- 


362  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

plained  that  Americans  spoke  the  same  language  as 
the  English  and  yet  were  not  quite  the  same  people. 

"  She  differs  from  the  girl  in  the  book-store,"  said 
March,  translating  to  his  wife.  "Let  us  get  away 
before  she  says  that  we  are  not  so  nice  as  the  Eng 
lish,"  and  they  made  off  toward  the  avenue  of  trees 
beyond  the  lawn. 

There  were  a  few  people  walking  up  and  down  in 
the  alley,  making  the  most  of  the  moment  of  dry 
weather.  They  saluted  one  another  -like  acquaint 
ances,  and  three  clean-shaven,  walnut-faced  old  peas 
ants  bowed  in  response  to  March's  stare,  with  a  self- 
respectful  civility.  They  were  yeomen  of  the  region 
of  Ansbach,  where  the  country  round  about  is  dotted 
with  their  cottages,  and  not  held  in  vast  homeless 
tracts  by  the  nobles  as  in  North  Germany. 

The  Bavarian  who  had  imparted  this  fact  to  March 
at  breakfast,  not  without  a  certain  tacit  pride  in  it  to 
the  disadvantage  of  the  Prussians,  was  at  the  supper 
table,  and  was  disposed  to  more  talk,  which  he  man 
aged  in  a  stout,  slow  English  of  his  own.  He  said 
he  had  never  really  spoken  English  with  an  English- 
speaking  person  before,  or  at  all  since  he  studied  it 
in  school  at  Munich. 

"  I  should  be  afraid  to  put  my  school-boy  German 
against  your  English,"  March  said,  and,  when  he  had 
understood,  the  other  laughed  for  pleasure,  and  report 
ed  the  compliment  to  his  wife  in  their  own  parlance. 
"  You  Germans  certainly  beat  us  in  languages." 

"Oh,  well,"  he  retaliated,  "the  Americans  beat  us 
in  some  other  things,"  and  Mrs.  March  felt  that  this 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  363 

was  but  just ;  she  would  have  liked  to  mention  a  few, 
but  not  ungraciously  ;  she  and  the  German  lady  kept 
smiling  across  the  table,  and  trying  detached  vocables 
of  their  respective  tongues  upon  each  other. 

The  Bavarian  said  he  lived  in  Munich  still,  but  was 
in  Ansbach  on  an  affair  of  business ;  he  asked  March 
if  he  were  not  going  to  see  the  manosuvres  somewhere. 
Till  now  the  manoeuvres  had  merely  been  the  inter 
esting  background  of  their  travel ;  but  now,  hearing 
that  the  Emperor  of  Germany,  the  King  of  Saxony, 
the  Regent  of  Bavaria,  and  the  King  of  Wiirtemberg, 
the  Grand-Dukes  of  Weimar  and  Baden,  with  visiting 
potentates  of  all  sorts,  and  innumerable  lesser  high- 
hotes,  foreign  and  domestic,  were  to  be  present,  Mrs. 
March  resolved  that  they  must  go  to  at  least  one  of 
the  reviews. 

"  If  you  go  to  Frankfort,  you  can  see  the  King  of 
Italy  too,"  said  the  Bavarian,  but  he  owned  that  they 
probably  could  not  get  into  a  hotel  there,  and  he 
asked  why  they  should  not  go  to  Wiirzburg,  where 
they  could  see  all  the  sovereigns  except  the  King  of 
Italy. 

"  Wiirzburg  ?  Wiirzburg  ? "  March  queried  of  his 
wife.  "  Where  did  we  hear  of  that  place  ? " 

"  Isn't  it  where  Burnamy  said  Mr.  Stoller  had  left 
his  daughters  at  school  ?  " 

"  So  it  is  !  And  is  that  on  the  way  to  the  Rhine  ?  " 
he  asked  the  Bavarian. 

"  No,  no  !  Wiirzburg  is  on  the  Main,  about  five 
hours  from  Ansbach.  And  it  is  a  very  interesting 
place.  It  is  where  the  good  wine  comes  from." 


364          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  Oil,  yes,"  said  March,  and  in  their  rooms  his  wife 
got  out  all  their  guides  and  maps  and  began  to  inform 
herself  and  to  inform  him  about  Wurzburg.  But 
first  she  said  it  was  very  cold  and  he  must  order  some 
fire  made  in  the  tall  German  stove  in  their  parlor. 
The  maid  who  came  said  "  Gleich,"  but  she  did  not 
come  back,  and  about  the  time  they  were  getting 
furious  at  her  neglect,  they  began  getting  warm.  He 
put  his  hand  on  the  stove  and  found  it  hot ;  then  he 
looked  down  for  a  door  in  the  stove  where  he  might 
shut  a  damper ;  there  was  no  door. 

"  Good  heavens  !  "  he  shouted.  "  It's  like  some 
thing  in  a  dream,"  and  he  ran  to  pull  the  bell  for  help. 

"  No,  no  !  Don't  ring !  It  will  make  us  ridiculous. 
They'll  think  Americans  don't  know  anything.  There 
must  be  some  way  of  dampening  the  stove ;  and  if 
there  isn't,  I'd  rather  suffocate  than  give  myself  away." 
Mrs.  March  ran  and  opened  the  window,  while  her 
husband  carefully  examined  the  stove  at  every  point, 
and  explored  the  pipe  for  the  damper  in  vain.  "  Can't 
you  find  it  ?  "  The  night  wind  came  in  raw  and  damp, 
and  threatened  to  blow  their  lamp  out,  and  she  was 
obliged  to  shut  the  window. 

"  Not  a  sign  of  it.  I  will  go  down  and  ask  the 
landlord  in  strict  confidence  how  they  dampen  their 
stoves  in  Ansbach." 

"  Well,  if  you  must.  It's  getting  hotter  every  mo 
ment."  She  followed  him  timorously  into  the  corri 
dor,  lit  by  a  hanging  lamp,  turned  low  for  the  night. 

He  looked  at  his  watch;  it  was  eleven  o'clock. 
"  I'm  afraid  they're  all  in  bed." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  365 

"  Yes ;  you  mustn't  go  !  We  must  try  to  find  out 
for  ourselves.  What  can  that  door  be  for  ?  " 

It  was  a  low  iron  door,  half  the  height  of  a  man,  in 
the  wall  near  their  room,  and  it  yielded  to  his  pull. 
"  Get  a  candle,"  he  whispered,  and  when  she  brought 
it,  he  stooped  to  enter  the  doorway. 

"  Oh,  do  you  think  you'd  better  ? "  she  hesitated. 

"  You  can  come,  too,  if  you're  afraid.  You've  al 
ways  said  you  wanted  to  die  with  me." 

"Well.     But  you  go  first." 

He  disappeared  within,  and  then  came  back  to  the 
doorway.  "  Just  come  in  here,  a  moment."  She 
found  herself  in  a  sort  of  antechamber,  half  the  height 
of  her  own  room,  and  following  his  gesture  she  looked 
down  where  in  one  corner  some  crouching  monster 
seemed  showing  its  fiery  teeth  in  a  grin  of  derision. 
This  grin  was  the  damper  of  their  stove,  and  this  was 
where  the  maid  had  kindled  the  fire  which  had  been 
roasting  them  alive,  and  was  still  joyously  chuckling 
to  itself.  "  I  think  that  Munich  man  was  wrong.  I 
don't  believe  we  beat  the  Germans  in  anything.  There 
isn't  a  hotel  in  the  United  States  where  the  stoves 
have  no  front  doors,  and  every  one  of  them  has  the 
space  of  a  good-sized  flat  given  up  to  the  convenience 
of  kindling  a  fire  in  it." 


AFTER  a  red  sunset  of  shameless  duplicity  March 
was  awakened  to  a  rainy  morning  by  the  clinking  of 
cavalry  hoofs  on  the  pavement  of  the  long  irregular 
square  before  the  hoteJ,  and  he  hurried  out  to  see  the 
passing  of  the  soldiers  on  their  way  to  the  manoeuvres. 
They  were  troops  of  all  arms,  but  mainly  infantry,  and 
as  they  stumped  heavily  through  the  groups  of  apa 
thetic  citizens  in  their  mud -splashed  boots,  they  took 
the  steady  downpour  on  their  dripping  helmets.  Some 
of  them  were  smoking,  but  none  smiling,  except  one 
gay  fellow  who  made  a  joke  to  a  serving-maid  on 
the  sidewalk.  An  old  officer  halted  his  staff  to  scold 
a  citizen  who  had  given  him  a  mistaken  direction. 
The  shame  of  the  erring  man  was 'great,  and  the  pride 
of  a  fellow-citizen  who  corrected  him  was  not  less, 
though  the  arrogant  brute  before  whom  they  both 
cringed  used  them  with  equal  scorn  ;  the  younger  offi 
cers  listened  indifferently  round  on  horseback  behind 
the  glitter  of  their  eye-glasses,  and  one  of  them  amused 
himself  by  turning  the  silver  bangles  on  his  wrist. 

Then  the  files  of  soldier  slaves  passed  on,  and 
March  crossed  the  bridge  spanning  the  gardens  in 


*  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  367 

what  had  been  the  city  moat,  and  found  his  way  to 
the  market-place,  under  the  walls  of  the  old  Gothic 
church  of  St.  Gumpertus.  The  market,  which  spread 
pretty  well  over  the  square,  seemed  to  be  also  a  fair, 
with  peasants'  clothes  and  local  pottery  for  sale,  as 
well  as  fruits  and  vegetables,  and  large  baskets  of 
flowers,  with  old  women  squatting  before  them.  It 
was  all  as  picturesque  as  the  markets  used  to  be  in 
Montreal  and  Quebec,  and  in  a  cloudy  memory  of  his 
wedding  journey  long  before,  he  bought  so  lavishly 
of  the  flowers  to  carry  back  to  his  wife  that  a  little 
girl,  who  saw  his  arm-load  from  her  window  as  he 
returned,  laughed  at  him,  and  then  drew  shyly  back. 
Her  laugh  reminded  him  how  many  happy  children 
he  had  seen  in  Germany,  and  how  freely  they  seemed 
to  play  everywhere,  with  no  one  to  make  them  afraid. 
When  they  grow  up  the  women  laugh  as  little  as  the 
men,  whose  rude  toil  the  soldiering  leaves  them  to. 

He  got  home  with  his  flowers,  and  his  wife  took 
them  absently,  and  made  him  join  her  in  watching 
the  sight  which  had  fascinated  her  in  the  street  under 
their  windows.  A  slender  girl,  with  a  waist  as  slim 
as  a  corseted  officer's,  from  time  to  time  came  out  of 
the  house  across  the  way  to  the  firewood  which  had 
been  thrown  from  a  wagon  upon  the  sidewalk  there. 
Each  time  she  embraced  several  of  the  heavy  four-foot 
logs  and  disappeared  with  them  in-doors.  Once  she 
paused  from  her  work  to  joke  with  a  well-dressed  man 
who  came  by,  and  seemed  to  find  nothing  odd  in  her 
work ;  some  gentlemen  lounging  at  the  window  over 
head  watched  her  with  no  apparent  sense  of  anomaly. 


368  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  that  ?  "  asked  Mrs.  March. 

"  I  think  it's  good  exercise  for  the  girl,  and  I  should 
like  to  recommend  it  to  those  fat  fellows  at  the  win 
dow.  I  suppose  she'll  saw  the  wood  in  the  cellar,  and 
then  lug  it  up  stairs,  and  pile  it  up  in  the  stoves' 
dressing-rooms." 

"  Don't  laugh  !     It's  too  disgraceful." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  !  If  you  like,  I'll  offer  these 
gentlemen  across  the  way  your  opinion  of  it  in  the 
language  of  Goethe  and  Schiller." 

"  I  wish  you'd  offer  my  opinion  of  them.  They've 
been  staring  in  here  with  an  opera-glass." 

"  Ah,  that's  a  different  affair.  There  isn't  much 
going  on  in  Ansbach,  and  they  have  to  make  the  most 
of  it." 

The  lower  casements  of  the  houses  were  furnished 
with  mirrors  set  at  right  angles  with  them,  and  noth 
ing  which  went  on  in  the  streets  was  lost.  Some  of 
the  streets  were  long  and  straight,  and  at  rare  mo 
ments  they  lay  full  of  sun.  At  such  times  the 
Marches  were  puzzled  by  the  sight  of  citizens  carrying 
open  umbrellas,  and  they  wondered  if  they  had  for 
gotten  to  put  them  down,  or  thought  it  not  worth 
while  in  the  brief  respites  from  the  rain,  or  were  prof 
iting  by  such  rare  occasions  to  dry  them ;  and  some 
other  sights  remained  baffling  to  the  last.  Once  a 
man  with  his  hands  pinioned  before  him,  and  a  gen 
darme  marching  stolidly  after  him  with  his  musket  on 
his  shoulder,  passed  under  their  windows ;  but  who 
he  was,  or  what  he  had  done,  or  was  to  suffer,  they 
never  knew.  Another  time  a  pair  went  by  on  the 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  369 

way  to  the  railway  station :  a  young  man  carrying  an 
umbrella  under  his  arm,  and  a  very  decent-looking  old 
woman  lugging  a  heavy  carpet  bag,  who  left  them  to 
the  lasting  question  whether  she  was  the  young  man's 
servant  in  her  best  clothes,  or  merely  his  mother. 

Women  do  not  do  everything  in  Ansbach,  however, 
the  sacristans  being  men,  as  the  Marches  found  when 
they  went  to  complete  their  impression  of  the  courtly 
past  of  the  city  by  visiting  the  funeral  chapel  of  the 
margraves  in  the  crypt  of  St.  Johannis  Church.  In 
the  little  ex-margravely  capital  there  was  something 
of  the  neighborly  interest  in  the  curiosity  of  strangers 
which  endears  Italian  witness.  The  white-haired 
street-sweeper  of  Ansbach,  who  willingly  left  his 
broom  to  guide  them  to  the  house  of  the  sacristan, 
might  have  been  a  street-sweeper  in  Vicenza ;  and  the 
old  sacristan,  when  he  put  his  velvet  skull-cap  out  of 
an  upper  window  and  professed  his  willingness  to 
show  them  the  chapel,  disappointed  them  by  saying 
"Gleich!"  instead  of  "Sulito!"  The  architecture 
of  the  houses  was  a  party  to  the  illusion.  St.  Johan 
nis,  like  the  older  church  of  St.  Gumpertus,  is  Gothic, 
with  the  two  unequal  towers  which  seem  distinctive  of 
Ansbach ;  at  the  St.  Gumpertus  end  of  the  place  where 
they  both  stand  the  dwellings  are  Gothic  too,  and 
might  be  in  Hamburg ;  but  at  the  St.  Johannis  end 
they  seem  to  have  felt  the  exotic  spirit  of  the  court, 
and  are  of  a  sort  of  Teutonized  renaissance. 

The  rococo  margraves  and  margravines  used  of 
course  to  worship  in  St.  Johannis  Church.  Now  they 
all,  such  as  did  not  marry  abroad,  lie  in  the  crypt  of 


370  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

the  church,  in  caskets  of  bronze  and  copper  and  mar 
ble,  with  draperies  of  black  samite,  more  and  more 
funereally  vainglorious  to  the  last.  Their  courtly 
coffins  are  ranged  in  a  kind  of  hemicycle,  with  the 
little  coffins  of  the  children  that  died  before  they 
came  to  the  knowledge  of  their  greatness.  On  one 
of  these  a  kneeling  figurine  in  bronze  holds  up  the 
effigy  of  the  child  within;  on  another  the  epitaph 
plays  tenderly  with  the  fate  of  a  little  princess,  who 
died  in  her  first  year. 

In  the  Rose-month  was  this  sweet  Rose  taken. 

For  the  Rose-kind  hath  she  earth  forsaken. 

The  Princess  is  the  Rose,  that  here  no  longer  blows. 

From  the  stem  by  death's  hand  rudely  shaken. 

Then  rest  in  the  Rose-house. 

Little  Princess-Rosebud  dear  ! 

There  life's  Rose  shall  bloom  again 

In  Heaven's  sunshine  clear. 

While  March  struggled  to  get  this  into  English 
words,  two  German  ladies,  who  had  made  themselves 
of  his  party,  passed  reverently  away  and  left  him  to 
pay  the  sacristan  alone. 

"  That  is  all  right,"  he  said,  when  he  came  out.  "  I 
think  we  got  the  most  value ;  and  they  didn't  look  as 
if  they  could  afford  it  so  well ;  though  you  never  can 
tell,  here.  These  ladies  may  be  the  highest  kind  of 
highhotes  practising  a  praiseworthy  economy.  I  hope 
the  lesson  won't  be  lost  on  us.  They  have  saved 
enough  by  us  for  their  coffee  at  the  Orangery.  Let 
us  go  and  have  a  little  willow-leaf  tea ! " 

The  Orangery  perpetually  lured  them  by  what  it 
had  kept  of  the  days  when  an  Orangery  was  essential 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  371 

to  the  self-respect  of  every  sovereign  prince,  and  of 
so  many  private  gentlemen.  On  their  way  they  al 
ways  passed  the  statue  of  Count  Platen,  the  dull  poet 
whom  Heine's  hate  would  have  delivered  so  cruelly 
over  to  an  immortality  of  contempt,  but  who  stands 
there  near  the  Schloss  in  a  grass-plot  prettily  planted 
with  flowers,  and  ignores  his  brilliant  enemy  in  the 
comfortable  durability  of  bronze;  and  there  always 
awaited  them  in  the  old  pleasaunce  the  pathos  of 
Kaspar  Hauser's  fate,  which  his  murder  affixes  to  it 
with  a  red  stain. 

After  their  cups  of  willow  leaves  at  the  cafe  they 
went  up  into  that  nook  of  the  plantation  where  the 
simple  shaft  of  church-warden's  Gothic  commemorates 
the  assassination  on  the  spot  where  it  befell.  Here 
the  hapless  youth,  whose  mystery  will  never  be  fath 
omed  on  earth,  used  to  come  for  a  little  respite  from 
his  harsh  guardian  in  Ansbach,  homesick  for  ,the 
kindness  of  his  Nuremberg  friends;  and  here  his  mur 
derer  found  him  and  dealt  him  the  mortal  blow. 

March  lingered  upon  the  last  sad  circumstance  of 
the  tragedy  in  which  the  wounded  boy  dragged  him 
self  home,  to  suffer  the  suspicion  and  neglect  of  his 
guardian  till  death  attested  his  good  faith  beyond 
cavil.  He  said  this  was  the  hardest  thing  to  bear  in 
all  his  story,  and  that  he  would  like  to  have  a  look 
into  the  soul  of  the  dull,  unkind  wretch  who  had  so 
misread  his  charge.  He  was  going  on  with  an  inquiry 
that  pleased  him  much,  when  his  wife  pulled  him 
abruptly  away. 

"  Now,  I  see,  you  are  yielding  to  the  fascination  of 


372  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

it,  and  you  are  wanting  to  take  the  material  from 
Burnamy ! " 

"Oh,  well,  let  him  have  the  material;  he  will  spoil 
it.  And  I  can  always  reject  it,  if  he  offers  it  to  Every 
Other  Week." 

11 1  could  believe,  after  your  behavior  to  that  poor 
woman  about  her  son  in  Jersey  City,  you're  really 
capable  of  it." 

"  What  comprehensive  inculpation  !  I  had  forgot 
ten  about  that  poor  woman." 


LI. 

THE  letters  which  March  had  asked  his  Nuremberg 
banker  to  send  them  came  just  as  they  were  leaving 
Ansbach.  The  landlord  sent  them  down  to  the  sta 
tion,  and  Mrs.  March  opened  them  in  the  train,  and 
read  them  first  so  that  she  could  prepare  him  if  there 
were  anything  annoying  in  them,  as  well  as  indulge 
her  livelier  curiosity. 

"  They're  from  both  the  children,"  she  said,  with 
out  waiting  for  him  to  ask.  "  You  can  look  at  them 
later.  There's  a  very  nice  letter  from  Mrs.  Adding  to 
me,  and  one  from  dear  little  Rose  for  you."  Then 
she  hesitated,  with  her  hand  on  a  letter  faced  down 
in  her  lap.  "  And  there's  one  from  Agatha  Triscoe, 
which  I  wonder  what  you'll  think  of."  She  delayed 
again,  and  then  flashed  it  open  before  him,  and  waited 
with  a  sort  of  impassioned  patience  while  he  read  it. 

He  read  it,  and  gave  it  back  to  her.  "There 
doesn't  seem  to  be  very  much  in  it." 

"  That's  it !  Don't  you  think  I  had  a  right  to  there 
being  something  in  it,  after  all  I  did  for  her  ? " 

"  I  always  hoped  you  hadn't  done  anything  for 
her,  but  if  you  have,  why  should  she  give  herself 
away  on  paper  ?  It's  a  very  proper  letter." 


374:          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  It's  a  little  too  proper,  and  it's  the  last  I  shall 
have  to  do  with  her.  She  knew  that  I  should  be  on 
pins  and  needles  till  I  heard  how  her  father  had  taken 
Burnamy's  being  there,  that  night,  and  she  doesn't 
say  a  word  about  it." 

"  The  general  may  have  had  a  tantrum  that  she 
couldn't  describe.  Perhaps  she  hasn't  told  him,  yet." 
"  She  would  tell  him  instantly  /"  cried  Mrs.  March 
who  began  to  find  reason  in  the  supposition,  as  well  as 
comfort  for  the  hurt  which  the  girl's  reticence  had 
given  her.  "Or  if  she  wouldn't,  it  would  be  because 
she  was  waiting  for  the  best  chance." 

"  That  would  be  like  the  wise  daughter  of  a  diffi 
cult  father.  She  may  be  waiting  for  the  best  chance 
to  say  how  he  took  it.  No,  I'm  all  for  Miss  Triscoe, 
and  I  hope  that  now,  if  she's  taken  herself  off  our 
hands,  she'll  keep  off." 

"  It's  altogether  likely  that  he's  made  her  promise 
not  to  tell  me  anything  about  it,"  Mrs.  March  mused 
alound. 

"  That  would  be  unjust  to  a  person  who  had  be 
haved  so  discreetly  as  you  have,"  said  her  husband. 

They  were  on  their  way  to  Wiirzburg,  and  at  the 
first  station,  which  was  a  junction,  a  lady  mounted  to 
their  compartment  just  before  the  train  began  to 
move.  She  was  stout  and  middle-aged,  and  had  never 
been  pretty,  but  she  bore  herself  with  a  kind  of 
authority  in  spite  of  her  thread  gloves,  her  dowdy 
gray  travelling-dress,  and  a  hat  of  lower  middle-class 
English  tastelessness.  She  took  the  only  seat  vacant, 
a  backward-riding  place  beside  a  sleeping  passenger 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  375 

who  looked  like  a  commercial  traveller,  but  she  seemed 
ill  at  ease  in  it,  and  March  offered  her  his  seat.  She 
accepted  it  very  promptly,  and  thanked  him  for  it  in 
the  English  of  a  German,  and  Mrs.  March  now  classed 
her  as  a  governess  who  had  been  teaching  in  England 
and  had  acquired  the  national  feeling  for  dress.  But 
in  this  character  she  found  her  interesting,  and  even 
a  little  pathetic,  and  she  made  her  some  overtures  of 
talk  which  the  other  met  eagerly  enough.  They  were 
now  running  among  low  hills,  not  so  picturesque  as 
those  between  Eger  and  Nuremberg,  but  of  much  the 
same  toylike  quaintness  in  the  villages  dropped  here 
and  there  in  their  valleys.  One  small  town,  com 
pletely  walled,  with  its  gray  houses  and  red  roofs, 
showed  through  the  green  of  its  trees  and  gardens  so 
like  a  colored  print  in  a  child's  story-book  that  Mrs. 
March  cried  out  for  joy  in  it,  and  then  accounted  for 
her  rapture  by  explaining  to  the  stranger  that  they 
were  Americans  and  had  never  been  in  Germany  be 
fore.  The  lady  was  not  visibly  affected  by  the  fact; 
she  said  casually  that  she  had  often  been  in  that  little 
town,  which  she  named ;  her  uncle  had  a  castle  in  the 
country  back  of  it,  and  she  came  with  her  husband  for 
the  shooting  in  the  autumn.  By  a  natural  transition 
she  spoke  of  her  children,  for  whom  she  had  an  Eng 
lish  governess;  she  said  she  had  never  been  in  Eng 
land,  but  had  learnt  the  language  from  a  governess  in 
her  own  childhood ;  and  through  it  all  Mrs.  March  per 
ceived  that  she  was  trying  to  impress  them  with  her 
consequence.  To  humor  her  pose,  she  said  they  had 
been  looking  up  the  scene  of  Kaspar  Hauser's  death  at 


376  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

Ansbach ;  and  at  this  the  stranger  launched  into  such 
intimate  particulars  concerning  him,  and  was  so  famil 
iar  at  first  hands  with  the  facts  of  his  life,  that  Mrs. 
March  let  her  run  on,  too  much  amused  with  her  pre 
tensions  to  betray  any  doubt  of  her.     She  wondered 
if  March  were  enjoying  it  all  as  much,  and  from  time 
to  time  she  tried   to  catch  his  eye,  while    the  lady 
talked  constantly  and  rather  loudly,  helping  herself 
out  with  words  from  them  both  when  her    English 
failed  her.    In  the  safety  of  her  perfect  understanding 
of  the  case,  Mrs.  March  now  submitted  farther,  and 
even  suffered  some  patronage  from  her,  which  in  an 
other  mood  she  would  have  met  with  a  decided  snub. 
As   they  drew  in  among   the    broad  vine-webbed 
slopes  of  the  Wiirzburg  hills,  the  stranger  said  she 
was  going  to  change  there,  and  take  a  train  on  to 
Berlin.     Mrs.  March  wondered  whether  she  would  be 
able  to  keep  up  the  comedy  to  the  last ;  and  she  had 
to  own  that  she  carried  it  off  very  easily  when  the 
friends  whom  she  was  expecting  did  not  meet  her  on 
the  arrival  of  their  train.      She  refused  March's  offers 
of  help,  and  remained  quietly  seated  while  he  got  out 
their  wraps  and   bags.     She  returned  with  a  hardy 
smile  the  cold  leave  Mrs.  March  took  of   her;    and 
when  a  porter  came  to  the  door,  and  forced  his  way 
by  the  Marches,  to  ask  with  anxious  servility  if  she 

were  the  Baroness  von ,  she  bade  the  man  get 

them  a  traeger,  and  then  come  back  for  her.  She 
waved  them  a  complacent  adieu  before  they  mixed 
with  the  crowd  and  lost  sight  of  her. 

"  Well,  my  dear,"  said  March,  addressing  the  snob- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  377 

bishness  in  his  wife  which  he  knew  to  be  so  wholly 
impersonal,  "  you've  mingled  with  one  highhote,  any 
way.  I  must  say  she  didn't  look  it,  any  more  than 
the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Orleans,  and  yet  she's  only 
a  baroness.  Think  of  our  being  three  hours  in  the 
same  compartment,  and  she  doing  all  she  could  to 
impress  us,  and  our  getting  no  good  of  it !  I  hoped 
you  were  feeling  her  quality,  so  that  we  should  have 
it  in  the  family,  anyway,  and  always  know  what  it 
was  like.  But  so  far,  the  highhotes  have  all  been 
terribly  disappointing." 

He  teased  on  as  they  followed  the  traeger  with 
their  baggage  out  of  the  station ;  and  in  the  omnibus 
on  the  way  to  their  hotel,  he  recurred  to  the  loss  they 
had  suffered  in  the  baroness's  failure  to  dramatize  her 
nobility  effectually.  "  After  all,  perhaps  she  was  as 
much  disappointed  in  us.  I  don't  suppose  we  looked 
any  more  like  democrats  than  she  looked  like  an  aris 
tocrat." 

"  But  there's  a  great  difference,"  Mrs.  March  re 
turned  at  last.  "  It  isn't  at  all  a  parallel  case.  We 
were  not  real  democrats,  and  she  was  a  real  aristocrat." 

"  To  be  sure.  There  is  that  way  of  looking  at  it. 
That's  rather  novel ;  I  wish  I  had  thought  of  that  my 
self.  She  was  certainly  more  to  blame  than  we  were." 


LIT. 

THE  square  in  front  of  the  station  was  planted  with 
flag-poles  wreathed  in  evergreens ;  a  triumphal  arch 
was  nearly  finished,  and  a  colossal  allegory  in  imita 
tion  bronze  was  well  on  the  way  to  completion,  in 
honor  of  tbe  majesties  who  were  coming  for  the 
manosuvres.  The  streets  which  the  omnibus  passed 
through  to  the  Swan  Inn  were  draped  with  the  im 
perial  German  and  the  royal  Bavarian  colors ;  and  the 
standards  of  the  visiting  nationalities  decked  the  fronts 
of  the  houses  where  their  military  attaches  were 
lodged ;  but  the  Marches  failed  to  see  our  own  banner, 
and  were  spared  for  the  moment  the  ignominy  of  find 
ing  it  over  an  apothecary  shop  in  a  retired  avenue. 
The  sun  had  come  out,  the  sky  overhead  was  of  a 
smiling  blue;  and  they  felt  the  gala-day  glow  and 
thrill  in  the  depths  of  their  inextinguishable  youth. 

The  Swan  Inn  sits  on  one  of  the  long  quays  bor 
dering  the  Main,  and  its  windows  look  down  upon  the 
bridges  and  shipping  of  the  river ;  but  the  traveller 
reaches  it  by  a  door  in  the  rear,  through  an  archway 
into  a  back  street,  where  an  odor  dating  back  to  the 
foundation  of  the  city  is  waiting  to  welcome  him. 


THEIR   SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  379 

The  landlord  was  there,  too,  and  he  greeted  the 
Marches  so  cordially  that  they  fully  partook  his  grief 
in  being  able  to  offer  them  rooms  on  the  front  of  the 
house  for  two  nights  only.  They  reconciled  them 
selves  to  the  necessity  of  then  turning  out  for  the 
staff  of  the  King  of  Saxony,  the  more  readily  because 
they  knew  that  there  was  no  hope  of  better  things  at 
any  other  hotel. 

The  rooms  which  they  could  have  for  the  time  were 
charming,  and  they  came  down  to  supper  in  a  glazed 
gallery  looking  out  on  the  river  picturesque  with  craft 
of  all  fashions :  with  row-boats,  sail-boats,  and  little 
steamers,  but  mainly  with  long  black  barges  built  up 
into  houses  in  the  middle,  and  defended  each  by  a 
little  nervous  German  dog.  Long  rafts  of  logs  wel- 
tereu  in  the  sunset  red  which  painted  the  swift  cur 
rent,  and  mantled  the  immeasurable  vineyards  of  the 
hills  around  like  the  color  of  their  ripening  grapes. 
Directly  in  face  rose  a  castled  steep,  which  kept  the 
ranging  walls  and  the  bastions  and  battlements  of  the 
time  when  such  a  stronghold  could  have  defended  the 
city  from  foes  without  or  from  tumult  within.  The 
arches  of  a  stately  bridge  spanned  the  river  sunset- 
ward,  and  lifted  a  succession  of  colossal  figures  against 
the  crimson  sky. 

"  I  guess  we  have  been  wasting  our  time,  my  dear," 
said  March,  as  they  turned  from  this  beauty  to  the 
question  of  supper.  "  I  wish  we  had  always  been 
here ! " 

Their  waiter  had  put  them  at  a  table  in  a  division 
of  the  gallery  beyond  that  which  they  entered,  where 


380  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

some  groups  of  officers  were  noisily  supping.  There 
was  no  one  in  their  room  but  a  man  whose  face  was 
indistinguishable  against  the  light,  and  two  young 
girls  who  glanced  at  them  with  looks  at  once  quelled 
and  defiant,  and  then  after  a  stare  at  the  officers  in  the 
gallery  beyond,  whispered  together  with  suppressed 
giggling.  The  man  fed  on  without  noticing  them, 
except  now  and  then  to  utter  a  growl  that  silenced 
the  whispering  and  giggling  for  a  moment.  The 
Marches,  from  no  positive  evidence  of  any  sense,  de 
cided  that  they  were  Americans. 

"  I  don't  know  that  I  feel  responsible  for  them  as 
their  fellow-countryman ;  I  should,  once,"  he  said. 

"  It  isn't  that.  It's  the  worry  of  trying  to  make  out 
why  they  are  just  what  they  are,"  his  wife  returned. 

The  girls  drew  the  man's  attention  to  them  and  he 
looked  at  them  for  the  first  time ;  then  after  a  sort  of 
hesitation  he  went  on  with  his  supper.  They  had 
only  begun  theirs  when  he  rose  with  the  two  girls, 
whom  Mrs.  March  now  saw  to  be  of  the  same  size  and 
dressed  alike,  and  came  heavily  toward  them. 

"  I  thought  you  was  in  Carlsbad,"  he  said  bluntly 
to  March,  with  a  nod  at  Mrs.  March.  He  added,  with 
a  twist  of  his  head  toward  the  two  girls,  "  My  daugh 
ters,"  and  then  left  them  to  her,  while  he  talked  on 
with  her  husband.  "Come  to  see  this  foolery,  I 
suppose.  I'm  on  my  way  to  the  woods  for  my  after- 
cure  ;  but  I  thought  I  might  as  well  stop  and  give  the 
girls  a  chance;  they  got  a  week's  vacation,  anyway." 
Stoller  glanced  at  them  with  a  sort  of  troubled  ten 
derness  in  his  strong  dull  face. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  381 

"  Oh,  yes.  I  understood  they  were  at  school  here," 
said  March,  and  he  heard  one  of  them  saying,  in  a 
sweet,  high  pipe  to  his  wife : 

"  Ain't  it  just  splendid  ?  I  ha'n't  seen  anything 
equal  to  it  since  the  Worrld's  Fairr."  She  spoke  with 
a  strong  contortion  of  the  Western  r,  and  her  sister 
hastened  to  put  in  : 

"  I  don't  think  it's  to  be  compared  with  the 
Worrld's  Fairr.  But  these  German  girrls,  here,  just 
think  it's  great.  It  just  does  me  good  to  laff  at  'em, 
about  it.  I  like  to  tell  'em  about  the  electric  fountain 
and  the  Courrt  of  Honorr  when  they  get  to  talkin' 
about  the  illuminations  they're  goun'  to  have.  You 
goun'  out  to  the  parade?  You  better  engage  your 
carriage  right  away  if  you  arre.  The  carrs  '11  be  a 
perfect  jam.  Father's  engaged  ourrs ;  he  had  to  pay 
sixty  marrks  forr  it." 

They  chattered  on  without  shyness  and  on  as  easy 
terms  with  a  woman  of  three  times  their  years  as  if 
she  had  been  a  girl  of  their  own  age ;  they  willingly 
took  the  whole  talk  to  themselves,  and  had  left  her 
quite  outside  of  it  before  Stoller  turned  to  her. 

"  I  been  telling  Mr.  March  here  that  you  better 
both  come  to  the  parade  with  us.  I  guess  my  two- 
spanner  will  hold  five ;  or  if  it  won't,  we'll  make  it. 
I  don't  believe  there's  a  carriage  left  in  Wurzburg ; 
and  if  you  go  in  the  cars,  you'll  have  to  walk  three  or 
four  miles  before  you  get  to  the  parade-ground.  You 
think  it  over,"  he  said  to  March.  "  Nobody  else  is 
going  to  have  the  places,  anyway,  and  you  can  say 
yes  at  the  last  minute  just  as  well  as  now." 


382  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

He  moved  off  with  his  girls,  who  looked  over  their 
shoulders  at  the  officers  as  they  passed  on  through 
the  adjoining  room. 

"  My  dear  !  "  cried  Mrs.  March.  "  Didn't  you  sup 
pose  he  classed  us  with  Burnamy  in  that  business? 
Why  should  he  be  polite  to  us  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  he  wants  you  to  chaperon  his  daughters. 
He's  probably  heard  of  your  performance  at  the  Kur- 
haus  ball.  But  he  knows  that  I  thought  Burnamy  in 
the  wrong.  This  may  be  Stoller's  way  of  wiping  out 
an  obligation.  Wouldn't  you  like  to  go  with  him  ?  " 

"  The  mere  thought  of  his  being  in  the  same  town 
is  prostrating.  I'd  far  rather  he  hated  us;  then  he 
would  avoid  us." 

"  Well,  he  doesn't  own  the  town,  and  if  it  comes 
to  the  worst,  perhaps  we  can  avoid  him.  Let  us  go 
out,  anyway,  and  see  if  we  can't." 

"  No,  no ;  I'm  too  tired ;  but  you  go.  And  get  all 
the  maps  and  guides  you  can ;  there's  so  very  little  in 
Baedeker,  and  almost  nothing  in  that  great  hulking 
Bradshaw  of  yours ;  and  I'm  sure  there  must  be  the 
most  interesting  history  of  Wurzburg.  Isn't  it  strange 
that  we  haven't  the  slightest  association  with  the 
name  ? " 

"  I've  been  rummaging  in  my  mind,  and  I've  got 
hold  of  an  association  at  last,"  said  March.  "  It's 
beer ;  a  sign  in  a  Sixth  Avenue  saloon  window : 
Wurzburger  Hof-Brau." 

"  No  matter  if  it  is  beer.  Find  some  sketch  of  the 
history,  and  we'll  try  to  get  away  from  the  Stollers  in 
it.  I  pitied  those  wild  girls,  too.  What  crazy  im- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  383 

ages  of  the  world  must  fill  their  empty  minds  !  How 
their  ignorant  thoughts  must  go  whirling  out  into  the 
unknown !  I  don't  envy  their  father.  Do  hurry  back ! 
I  shall  be  thinking  about  them  every  instant  till  you 
come." 

She  said  this,  but  in  their  own  rooms  it  was  so 
soothing  to  sit  looking  through  the  long  twilight  at 
the  lovely  landscape  that  the  sort  of  bruise  given  by 
their  encounter  with  the  Stollers  had  left  her  con 
sciousness  before  March  returned.  She  made  him 
admire  first  the  convent  church  on  a  hill  further  up 
the  river  which  exactly  balanced  the  fortress  in  front 
of  them,  and  then  she  seized  upon  the  little  books  he 
had  brought,  and  set  him  to  exploring  the  labyrinths 
of  their  German,  with  a  mounting  exultation  in  his 
discoveries.  There  was  a  general  guide  to  the  city, 
and  a  special  guide,  with  plans  and  personal  details  of 
the  approaching  manceuvres  and  the  princes  who  were 
to  figure  in  them ;  and  there  was  a  sketch  of  the  local 
history :  a  kind  of  thing  that  the  Germans  know  how 
to  write  particularly  well,  with  little  gleams  of  pleas 
ant  humor  blinking  through  it.  For  the  study  of 
this,  Mrs.  March  realized,  more  and  more  passionately, 
that  they  were  in  the  very  most  central  and  conven 
ient  point,  for  the  history  of  Wiirzburg  might  be  said 
to  have  begun  with  her  prince-bishops,  whose  rule  had 
begun  in  the  twelfth  century,  and  who  had  built,  on 
a  forgotten  Roman  work,  the  fortress  of  the  Marien- 
burg  on  that  vineyarded  hill  over  against  the  Swan 
Inn.  There  had  of  course  been  history  before  that, 
but  nothing  so  clear,  nothing  so  peculiarly  swell, 


384          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

nothing  that  so  united  the  glory  of  this  world  and  the 
next  as  that  of  the  prince-bishops.  They  had  made 
the  Marienburg  their  home,  and  kept  it  against  for 
eign  and  domestic  foes  for  five  hundred  years.  Shut 
within  its  well-armed  walls  they  had  awed  the  often- 
turbulent  city  across  the  Main ;  they  had  held  it 
against  the  embattled  farmers  in  the  Peasants'  War, 
and  had  splendidly  lost  it  to  Gustavus  Adolphus,  and 
then  got  it  back  again  and  held  it  till  Napoleon  took 
it  from  them.  He  gave  it  with  their  flock  to  the  Ba 
varians,  who  in  turn  briefly  yielded  it  to  the  Prussians 
in  1866,  and  were  now  in  a^arently  final  possession 
of  it. 

Before  the  prince-bishops,  Charlemagne  and  Bar- 
barossa  had  come  and  gone,  and  since  the  prince- 
bishops  there  had  been  visiting  thrones  and  kingdoms 
enough  in  the  ancient  city,  which  was  soon  to  be  illus 
trated  by  the  presence  of  imperial  Germany,  royal 
Wirtemberg  and  Saxony,  grand-ducal  Baden  and 
Weimar,  and  a  surfeit  of  all  the  minor  potentates 
among  those  who  speak  the  beautiful  language  of  the 
Ja. 

But  none  of  these  could  dislodge  the  prince- 
bishops  from  that  supreme  place  which  they  had  at 
once  taken  in  Mrs.  March's  fancy.  The  potentates 
were  all  going  to  be  housed  in  the  vast  palace  which 
the  prince-bishops  had  built  themselves  in  Wurzburg 
as  soon  as  they  found  it  safe  to  come  down  from  their 
stronghold  of  Marienburg,  and  begin  to  a'dorn  their 
city,  and  to  confirm  it  in  its  intense  fidelity  to  the 
Church.  Tiepolo  had  come  up  out  of  Italy  to  fresco 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  385 

their  palace,  where  he  wrought  year  after  year,  in 
that  worldly  taste  which  has  somehow  come  to  express 
the  most  sovereign  moment  of  ecclesiasticism.  It 
prevailed  so  universally  in  Wiirzburg  that  it  left  her 
with  the  name  of  the  Rococo  City,  intrenched  in  a 
period  of  time  equally  remote  from  early  Christianity 
and  modern  Protestantism.  Out  of  her  sixty  thou 
sand  souls,  only  ten  thousand  are  now  of  the  reformed 
religion,  and  these  bear  about  the  same  relation  to  the 
Catholic  spirit  of  the  place  that  the  Gothic  architecture 
bears  to  the  baroque. 

As  long  as  the  prince-bishops  lasted  the  Wurzburg- 
ers  got  on  very  well  with  but  one  newspaper,  and  per 
haps  the  smallest  amount  of  merrymaking  known  out 
side  of  the  colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay  at  the  same 
epoch.  The  prince-bishops  had  their  finger  in  every 
body's  pie,  and  they  portioned  out  the  cakes  and  ale, 
which  were  made  according  to  formulas  of  their 
own.  The  distractions  were  all  of  a  religious  charac 
ter  ;  churches,  convents,  monasteries,  abounded ;  eccle 
siastical  processions  and  solemnities  were  the  specta 
cles  that  edified  if  they  did  not  amuse  the  devout 
population. 

It  seemed  to  March  an  ironical  outcome  of  all  this 
spiritual  severity  that  one  of  the  greatest  modern 
scientific  discoveries  should  have  been  made  in 
Wiirzburg,  and  that  the  Rontgen  rays  should  now  be 
giving  her  name  a  splendor  destined  to  eclipse  the 
glories  of  her  past. 

Mrs.  March  could  not  allow  that  they  would  do  so ; 
or  at  least  that  the  name  of  Rontgen  would  ever  lend 


386  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

more  lustre  to  his  city  than  that  of  Longfellow's 
Walther  von  der  Vogelweide.  She  was  no  less  sur 
prised  than  pleased  to  realize  that  this  friend  of  the 
birds  was  a  Wiirzburger,  and  she  said  that  their  first 
pilgrimage  in  the  morning  should  be  to  the  church 
where  he  lies  buried. 


LIII. 

MARCH  went  down  to  breakfast  not  quite  so  early 
as  his  wife  had  planned,  and  left  her  to  have  her  coffee 
in  her  room.  He  got  a  pleasant  table  in  the  gallery 
overlooking  the  river,  and  he  decided  that  the  land 
scape,  though  it  now  seemed  to  be  rather  too  much 
studied  from  a  drop-curtain,  had  certainly  lost  nothing 
of  its  charm  in  the  clear  morning  light.  The  waiter 
brought  his  breakfast,  and  after  a  little  delay  came 
back  with  a  card  which  he  insisted  was  for  March. 
It  was  not  till  he  put  on  his  glasses  and  read  the 
name  of  Mr.  R.  M.  Kenby  that  he  was  able  at  all  to 
agree  with  the  waiter,  who  stood  passive  at  his  elbow. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  why  wasn't  this  card  sent  up 
last  night  ? " 

The  waiter  explained  that  the  gentleman  had  just 
given  him  his  card,  after  asking  March's  nationality, 
and  was  then  breakfasting  in  the  next  room.  March 
caught  up  his  napkin  and  ran  round  the  partition 
wall,  and  Kenby  rose  with  his  napkin  and  hurried  to 
meet  him. 

"  I  thought  it  must  be  you,"  he  called  out,  joyfully, 
as  they  struck  their  extended  hands  together,  "  but 


388  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

so  many  people  look  alike,  nowadays,  that  I  don't 
trust  my  eyes  any  more." 

Kenby  said  he  had  spent  the  time  since  they  last 
met  partly  in  Leipsic  and  partly  in  Gotha,  where  he 
had  amused  himself  in  rubbing  up  his  rusty  German. 
As  soon  as  he  realized  that  Wiirzburg  was  so  near  he 
had  slipped  down  from  Gotha  for  a  glimpse  of  the 
rnano3uvres.  He  added  that  he  supposed  March  was 
there  to  see  them,  and  he  asked  with  a  quite  unem 
barrassed  smile  if  they  had  met  Mrs.  Adding  in 
Carlsbad,  and  without  heeding  March's  answer,  he 
laughed  and  added :  "  Of  course,  I  know  she  must 
have  told  Mrs.  March  all  about  it." 

March  could  not  deny  this ;  he  laughed,  too ;  though 
in  his  wife's  absence  he  felt  bound  to  forbid  himself 
anything  more  explicit. 

44 1  don't  give  it  up,  you  know,"  Kenby  went  on, 
with  perfect  ease.  "  I'm  not  a  young  fellow,  if  you 
call  thirty-nine  old." 

"  At  my  age  I  don't,"  March  put  in,  and  they 
roared  together,  in  men's  security  from  the  encroach 
ments  of  time. 

"  But  she  happens  to  be  the  only  woman  I've  ever 
really  wanted  to  marry,  for  more  than  a  few  days  at 
a  stretch.  You  know  how  it  is  with  us." 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  know,"  said  March,  and  they  shouted 
again. 

"  We're  in  love,  and  we're  out  of  love,  twenty  times. 
But  this  isn't  a  mere  fancy ;  it's  a  conviction.  And 
there's  no  reason  why  she  shouldn't  marry  me." 

March  smiled  gravely,  and  his  smile  was  not  lost 


THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.          389 

upon  Kenby.  "  You  mean  the  boy,"  he  said.  "  Well, 
I  like  Rose,"  and  now  March  really  felt  swept  from 
his  feet.  "  She  doesn't  deny  that  she  likes  me,  but 
she  seems  to  think  that  her  marrying  again  will  take 
her  from  him ;  the  fact  is,  it  will  only  give  me  to  him. 
As  for  denting  her  whole  life  to  him,  she  couldn't 
do  a  worse  thing  for  him.  What  the  boy  needs  is  a 
man's  care,  and  a  man's  will—  Good  heavens !  You 
don't  think  I  could  ever  be  unkind  to  the  little  soul  ?  " 
Keriby  threw  himself  forward  over  the  table. 

"  My  dear  fellow  ! "  March  protested. 

"  I'd  rather  cut  off  my  right  hand  !  "  Kenby  pur 
sued,  excitedly,  and  then  he  said,  with  a  humorous 
drop :  "  The  fact  is,  I  don't  believe  I  should  want  her 
so  much  if  I  couldn't  have  Rose  too.  I  want  to  have 
them  both.  So  far,  I've  only  got  no  for  an  answer ; 
but  I'm  not  going  to  keep  it.  I  had  a  letter  from 
Rose  at  Carlsbad,  the  other  day ;  and — " 

The  waiter  came  forward  with  a  folded  scrap  of 
paper  on  his  salver,  which  March  knew  must  be  from 
his  wife.  "  What  is  keeping  you  so  ? "  she  wrote. 
"I  am  all  ready."  "It's  from  Mrs.  March,"  he  ex 
plained  to  Kenby.  "  I  am  going  out  with  her  on 
some  errands.  I'm  awfully  glad  to  see  you  again. 
We  must  talk  it  all  over,  and  you  must — you  mustn't 
— Mrs.  March  will  want  to  see  you  later — I —  Are 
you  in  the  hotel  ?  " 

"  Oh  yes.  I'll  see  you  at  the  one-o'clock  table 
d'hote,  I  suppose." 

March  went  away  with  his  head  whirling  in  the 
question  whether  he  should  tell  his  wife  at  once  of 


390  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

Kenby's  presence,  or  leave  her  free  for  the  pleasures 
of  Wiirzburg,  till  he  could  shape  the  fact  into  some 
safe  and  acceptable  form.  She  met  him  at  the  door 
with  her  guide-books,  wraps  and  umbrellas,  and  would 
hardly  give  him  time  to  get  on  his  hat  and  coat. 

"  Now,  I  want  you  to  avoid  the  Stollers  as  far  as 
you  can  see  them.  This  is  to  be  a  real  wedding-jour 
ney  day,  with  no  extraneous  acquaintance  to  bother; 
the  more  strangers  the  better.  Wiirzburg  is  richer 
than  anything  I  imagined.  I've  looked  it  all  up ;  I've 
got  the  plan  of  the  city,  so  that  we  can  easily  find  the 
way.  We'll  walk  first,  and  take  carriages  whenever 
we  get  tired.  We'll  go  to  the  cathedral  at  once ;  I 
want  a  good  gulp  of  rococo  to  begin  with  ;  there 
wasn't  half  enough  of  it  at  Ansbach.  Isn't  it  strange 
how  we've  come  round  to  it  ? " 

She  referred  to  that  passion  for  the  Gothic  which 
they  had  obediently  imbibed  from  Ruskin  in  the  days 
of  their  early  Italian  travel  and  courtship,  when  all 
the  English-speaking  world  bowed  down  to  him  in 
devout  aversion  from  the  renaissance,  and  pious  ab 
horrence  of  the  rococo. 

"  What  biddable  little  things  we  were  !  "  she  went 
on,  while  March  was  struggling  to  keep  Kenby  in  the 
background  of  his  consciousness.  "  The  rococo  must 
have  always  had  a  sneaking  charm  for  us,  when  we 
were  pinning  our  faith  to  pointed  arches ;  and  yet  I 
suppose  we  were  perfectly  sincere.  Oh,  look  at  that 
divinely  ridiculous  Madonna ! "  They  were  now 
making  their  way  out  of  the  crooked  footway  behind 
their  hotel  toward  the  street  leading  to  the  cathedral, 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  391 

and  she  pointed  to  the  Blessed  Virgin  over  the  door 
of  some  religious  house,  her  drapery  billowing  about 
her  feet ;  her  body  twisting  to  show  the  sculptor's 
mastery  of  anatomy,  and  the  halo  held  on  her  tossing 
head  with  the  help  of  stout  gilt  rays.  In  fact,  the 
Virgin's  whole  figure  was  gilded,  and  so  was  that  of 
the  child  in  her  arms.  "  Isn't  she  delightful  ?  " 

"  I  see  what  you  mean,"  said  March,  with  a  dubious 
glance  at  the  statue,  "  but  I'm  not  sure,  now,  that  I 
wouldn't  like  something  quieter  in  my  Madonnas." 

The  thoroughfare  which  they  emerged  upon,  with 
the  cathedral  ending  the  prospective,  was  full  of  the 
holiday  so  near  at  hand.  The  narrow  sidewalks  were 
thronged  with  people,  both  soldiers  and  civilians,  and 
up  the  middle  of  the  street  detachments  of  military 
came  and  went,  halting  the  little  horse-cars  and  the 
huge  beer-wagons  which  otherwise  seemed  to  have  the 
sole  right  to  the  streets  of  Wiirzburg;  they  came 
jingling  or  thundering  out  of  the  side  streets  and 
hurled  themselves  round  the  corners  reckless  of  the 
passers,  who  escaped  alive  by  flattening  themselves  like 
posters  against  the  house  walls.  There  were  peasants, 
men  and  women,  in  the  costume  which  the  unbroken 
course  of  their  country  life  had  kept  as  quaint  as  it 
was  a  hundred  years  before  ;  there  were  citizens  in  the 
misfits  of  the  latest  German  fashions ;  there  were  sol 
diers  of  all  arms  in  their  vivid  uniforms,  and  from 
time  to  time  there  were  pretty  young  girls  in  white 
dresses  with  low  necks,  and  bare  arms  gloved  to  the 
elbows,  who  were  following  a  holiday  custom  of  the 
place  in  going  about  the  streets  in  ball  costume.  The 


392  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

shop  windows  were  filled  with  portraits  of  the  Em 
peror  and  the  Empress,  and  the  Prince-Regent  and 
the  ladies  of  his  family;  the  German  and  Bavarian 
colors  draped  the  fagades  of  the  houses  and  festooned 
the  fantastic  Madonnas  posing  above  so  many  portals. 
The  modern  patriotism  included  the  ancient  piety 
without  disturbing  it ;  the  rococo  city  remained  eccle 
siastical  through  its  new  imperialism,  and  kept  the 
stamp  given  it  by  the  long  rule  of  the  prince-bishops 
under  the  sovereignty  of  its  King  and  the  suzerainty 
of  its  Kaiser. 

The  Marches  escaped  from  the  present,  when  they 
entered  the  cathedral,  as  wholly  as  if  they  had  taken 
hold  of  the  horns  of  the  altar,  though  they  were  far 
from  literally  doing  this  in  an  interior  so  grandiose. 
There  are  a  few  rococo  churches  in  Italy,  and  perhaps 
more  in  Spain,  which  approach  the  perfection  achieved 
by  the  Wurzburg  cathedral  in  the  baroque  style.  For 
once  one  sees  what  that  style  can  do  in  architecture 
and  sculpture,  and  whatever  one  may  say  of  the  details, 
one  cannot  deny  that  there  is  a  prodigiously  effective 
keeping  in  it  all.  This  interior  came  together,  as  the 
decorators  say,  with  a  harmony  that  the  travellers  had 
felt  nowhere  in  their  earlier  experience  of  the  rococo. 
It  was  unimpeachably  perfect  in  its  way,  "Just," 
March  murmured  to  his  wife,  "  as  the  social  and  po 
litical  and  scientific  scheme  of  the  eighteenth  century 
was  perfected  in  certain  times  and  places.  But  the 
odd  thing  is  to  find  the  apotheosis  of  the  rococo  away 
up  here  in  Germany.  I  wonder  how  much  the  prince- 
bishops  really  liked  it.  But  they  had  become  rococo, 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  393 

too  !  Look  at  that  row  of  their  statues  on  both  sides 
of  the  nave  !  What  magnificent  swells  !  How  they 
abash  this  poor  plain  Christ,  here ;  he  would  like  to 
get  behind  the  pillar ;  he  knows  that  he  could  never 
lend  himself  to  the  baroque  style.  It  expresses  the 
eighteenth  century,  though.  But  how  you  long  for 
some  little  hint  of  the  thirteenth,  or  even  the  nine 
teenth." 

"  I  don't,"  she  whispered  back.  "  I'm  perfectly 
wild  with  Wiirzburg.  I  like  to  have  a  thing  go  as 
far  as  it  can.  At  Nuremberg  I  wanted  all  the  Gothic 
I  could  get,  and  in  Wiirzburg  I  want  all  the  baroque 
I  can  get.  /  am  consistent." 

She  kept  on  praising  herself  to  his  disadvantage,  as 
women  do,  all  the  way  to  the  Neumiinster  Church, 
where  they  were  going  to  revere  the  tomb  of  Walther 
von  der  Vogelweide,  not  so  much  for  his  own  sake  as 
for  Longfellow's.  The  older  poet  lies  buried  within, 
but  his  monument  is  outside  the  church,  perhaps  for 
the  greater  convenience  of  the  sparrows,  which  now 
represent  the  birds  he  loved.  The  cenotaph  is  sur 
mounted  by  a  broad  vase,  and  around  this  are  thickly 
perched  the  effigies  of  the  Meistersinger's  feathered 
friends,  from  whom  the  canons  of  the  church,  as  Mrs. 
March  read  aloud  from  her  Baedeker,  long  ago  di 
rected  his  bequest  to  themselves.  In  revenge  for  their 
lawless  greed  the  defrauded  beneficiaries  choose  to 
burlesque  the  affair  by  looking  like  the  four-and-twenty 
blackbirds  when  the  pie  was  opened. 

She  consented  to  go  for  a  moment  to  the  Gothic 
Marienkapelle  with  her  husband  in  the  revival  of  his 


394  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

mediaeval  taste,  and  she  was  rewarded  amidst  its 
thirteenth-century  sincerity  by  his  recantation.  "  You 
are  right  !  Baroque  is  the  thing  for  Wiirzburg;  one 
can't  enjoy  Gothic  here  any  more  than  one  could  enjoy 
baroque  in  Nuremberg." 

Reconciled  in  the  rococo,  they  now  called  a  carriage, 
and  went  to  visit  the  palace  of  the  prince-bishops 
who  had  so  well  known  how  to  make  the  heavenly 
take  the  image  and  superscription  of  the  worldly  ;  and 
they  were  jointly  indignant  to  find  it  shut  against  the 
public  in  preparation  for  the  imperialities  and  royal 
ties  coming  to  occupy  it.  They  were  in  time  for  the 
noon  guard-mounting,  however,  and  Mrs.  March  said 
that  the  way  the  retiring  squad  kicked  their  legs  out 
in  the  high  martial  step  of  the  German  soldiers  was  a 
perfect  expression  of  the  insolent  militarism  of  their 
empire,  and  was  of  itself  enough  to  make  one  thank 
Heaven  that  one  was  an  American  and  a  republican. 
She  softened  a  little  toward  their  system  when  it 
proved  that  the  garden  of  the  palace  was  still  open, 
and  yet  more  when  she  sank  down  upon  a  bench 
between  two  marble  groups  representing  the  Rape  of 
Proserpine  and  the  Rape  of  Europa.  They  stood 
each  in  a  gravelled  plot,  thickly  overrun  by  a  growth 
of  ivy,  and  the  vine  climbed  the  white  naked  limbs  of 
the  nymphs,  who  were  present  on  a  pretence  of  gath 
ering  flowers,  but  really  to  pose  at  the  spectators,  and 
clad  them  to  the  waist  and  shoulders  with  an  effect  of 
modesty  never  meant  by  the  sculptor,  but  not  dis 
pleasing.  There  was  an  old  fountain  near,  its  stone 
rim  and  centre  of  rock-work  green  with  immemorial 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  395 

mould,  and  its  basin  quivering  between  its  water-plants 
under  the  soft  fall  of  spray.  At  a  waft  of  fitful  breeze 
some  leaves  of  early  autumn  fell  from  the  trees  over 
head  upon  the  elderly  pair  where  they  sat,  and  a  little 
company  of  sparrows  came  and  hopped  about  their 
feet.  Though  the  square  without  was  so  all  astir  with 
festive  expectation,  there  were  few  people  in  the  gar 
den;  three  or  four  peasant  women  in  densely  fluted 
white  skirts  and  red  aprons  and  shawls  wandered  by 
and  stared  at  the  Europa  and  at  the  Proserpine. 

It  was  a  precious  moment  in  which  the  charm  of 
the  city's  past  seemed  to  culminate,  and  they  were 
loath  to  break  it  by  speech. 

"  Why  didn't  we  have  something  like  all  this  on 
oiir  first  wedding  journey  ?  "  she  sighed  at  last.  "  To 
think  of  our  battening  from  Boston  to  Niagara  and 
back  !  And  how  hard  we  tried  to  make  something  of 
Rochester  and  Buffalo,  of  Montreal  and  Quebec  !  " 

"  Niagara  wasn't  so  bad,"  he  said,  "  and  I  will 
never  go  back  on  Quebec." 

"  Ah,  but  if  we  could  have  had  Hamburg  and  Leip- 
sic,  and  Carlsbad  and  Nuremberg,  and  Ansbach  and 
Wurzburg  !  Perhaps  this  is  meant  as  a  compensation 
for  our  lost  youth.  But  I  can't  enjoy  it  as  I  could 
when  I  was  young.  It's  wasted  on  my  sere  and  yel 
low  leaf.  I  wish  Burnamy  and  Miss  Triscoe  were 
here ;  I  should  like  to  try  this  garden  on  them." 

"  They  wouldn't  care  for  it,"  he  replied,  and  upon 
a  daring  impulse  he  added,  "  Kenby  and  Mrs.  Adding 
might."  If  she  took  this  suggestion  in  good  part,  he 
could  tell  her  that  Kenby  was  in  Wurzburg. 


396          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  Don't  speak  of  them !  They're  in  just  that  be 
sotted  early  middle-age  when  life  has  settled  into  a 
self-satisfied  present,  with  no  past  and  no  future;  the 
most  philistine,  the  most  bourgeois,  moment  of  exist 
ence.  Better  be  elderly  at  once,  as  far  as  appreciation 
of  all  this  goes."  She  rose  and  put  her  hand  on  his 
arm,  and  pushed  him  away  in  the  impulsive  fashion  of 
her  youth,  across  alleys  of  old  trees  toward  a  balustrad- 
ed  terrace  in  the  background  which  had  tempted  her. 

"  It  isn't  so  bad,  being  elderly,"  he  said.  "  By 
that  time  we  have  accumulated  enough  past  to  sit 
down  and  really  enjoy  its  associations.  We  have  got 
all  sorts  of  perspectives  and  points  of  view.  We 
know  '  where  we  are  at.'  " 

"  I  don't  mind  being  elderly.  The  world's  just  as 
amusing  as  ever,  and  lots  of  disagreeable  things  have 
dropped  out.  It's  the  getting  more  than  elderly  ;  it's 
the  getting  old  ;  and  then — " 

They  shrank  a  little  closer  together,  and  walked  on 
in  silence  till  he  said,  "Perhaps  there's  something 
else,  something  better — somewhere." 

They  had  reached  the  balustraded  terrace,  and  were 
pausing  for  pleasure  in  the  garden  tops  below,  with 
the  flowery  spaces,  and  the  statued  fountains  all  com 
ing  together.  She  put  her  hand  on  one  of  the  fat 
little  urchin-groups  on  the  stone  coping.  "I  dont 
want  cherubs,  when  I  can  have  these  putti.  And 
those  old  prince-bishops  didn't,  either !  " 

"  I  dorft  suppose  they  kept  a  New  England  con 
science,"  he  said,  with  a  vague  smile.  "  It  would  be 
difficult  in  the  presence  of  the  rococo." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  397 

They  left  the  garden  through  the  beautiful  gate 
which  the  old  court  ironsmith  Oegg  hammered  out  in 
lovely  forms  of  leaves  and  flowers,  and  shaped  later 
ally  upward,  as  lightly  as  if  with  a  waft  of  his  hand, 
in  gracious  Louis  Quinze  curves ;  and  they  looked 
back  at  it  in  the  kind  of  despair  which  any  perfection 
inspires.  They  said  how  feminine  it  was,  how  exotic, 
how  expressive  of  a  luxurious  ideal  of  life  which  art 
had  purified  and  left  eternally  charming.  They  re 
membered  their  Ruskinian  youth,  and  the  confidence 
with  which  they  would  once  have  condemned  it ;  and 
they  had  a  sense  of  recreance  in  now  admiring  it ;  but 
they  certainly  admired  it,  and  it  remained  for  them 
the  supreme  expression  of  that  time-soul,  mundane, 
courtly,  aristocratic,  flattering,  which  once  influenced 
the  art  of  the  whole  world,  and  which  had  here  so 
curiously  found  its  apotheosis  in  a  city  remote  from 
its  native  place  and  under  a  rule  sacerdotally  vowed 
to  austerity.  The  vast  superb  palace  of  the  prince- 
bishops,  which  was  now  to  house  a  whole  troop  of 
sovereigns,  imperial,  royal,  grand  ducal  and  ducal, 
swelled  aloft  in  superb  amplitude ;  but  it  did  not  real 
ize  their  historic  pride  so  effectively  as  this  exquisite 
work  of  the  court  ironsmith.  It  related  itself  in  its 
aerial  beauty  to  that  of  the  Tiepolo  frescoes  which  the 
travellers  knew  were  swimming  and  soaring  on  the 
ceilings  within,  and  from  which  it  seemed  to  accent 
their  exclusion  with  a  delicate  irony,  March  said. 
"  Or  iron-mongery,"  he  corrected  himself  upon  re 
flection. 


LIV. 

HE  had  forgotten  Kenby  in  these  aesthetic  interests, 
but  he  remembered  him  again  when  he  called  a  carri 
age,  and  ordered  it  driven  to  their  hotel.  It  was  the 
hour  of  the  German  mid-day  table  d'hote,  and  they 
would  be  sure  to  meet  him  there.  The  question  now 
was  how  March  should  own  his  presence  in  time  to 
prevent  his  wife  from  showing  her  ignorance  of  it  to 
Kenby  himself,  and  he  was  still  turning  the  question 
hopelessly  over  in  his  mind  when  the  sight  of  the 
hotel  seemed  to  remind  her  of  a  fact  which  she  an 
nounced. 

"  Now,  my  dear,  I  am  tired  to  death,  and  I  am  not 
going  to  sit  through  a  long  table  d'hote.  I  want  you 
to  send  me  up  a  simple  beefsteak  and  a  cup  of  tea  to 
our  rooms ;  and  I  don't  want  you  to  come  near  for 
hours ;  because  I  intend  to  take  a  whole  afternoon 
nap.  You  can  keep  all  the  maps  and  plans,  and 
guides,  and  you  had  better  go  and  see  what  the  Volks- 
fest  is  like ;  it  will  give  you  some  notion  of  the  part 
the  people  are  really  taking  in  all  this  official  celebra 
tion,  and  you  know  I  don't  care.  Don't  come  up  after 
dinner  to  see  how  I  am  getting  along;  I  shall  get 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  399 

along ;  and  if  you  should  happen  to  wake  me  after  I 
had  dropped  off — " 

Kenby  had  seen  them  arrive  from  where  he  sat  at 
the  reading-room  window,  waiting  for  the  dinner  hour, 
and  had  meant  to  rush  out  and  greet  Mrs.  March  as 
they  passed  up  the  corridor.  But  she  looked  so  tired 
that  he  had  decided  to  spare  her  till  she  came  down 
to  dinner ;  and  as  he  sat  with  March  at  their  soup,  he 
asked  if  she  were  not  well. 

March  explained,  and  he  provisionally  invented 
some  regrets  from  her  that  she  should  not  see  Kenby 
till  supper. 

Kenby  ordered  a  bottle  of  one  of  the  famous  Wiirz- 
burg  wines  for  their  mutual  consolation  in  her  ab 
sence,  and  in  the  friendliness  which  it  promoted  they 
agreed  to  spend  the  afternoon  together.  No  man  is 
so  inveterate  a  husband  as  not  to  take  kindly  an  oc 
casional  release  to  bachelor  companionship,  and  before 
the  dinner  was  over  they  agreed  that  they  would  go 
to  the  Volksfest,  and  get  some  notion  of  the  popular 
life  and  amusements  of  Wiirzburg,  which  was  one  of 
the  few  places  where  Kenby  had  never  been  before ; 
and  they  agreed  that  they  would  walk. 

Their  way  was  partly  up  the  quay  of  the  Main,  past 
a  barrack  full  of  soldiers.  They  met  detachments  of 
soldiers  everywhere,  infantry,  artillery,  cavalry. 

"  This  is  going  to  be  a  great  show,"  Kenby  said, 
meaning  the  manoeuvres,  and  he  added,  as  if  now  he 
had  kept  away  from  the  subject  long  enough  and  had 
a  right  to  recur  to  it,  at  least  indirectly,  "  I  should 
like  to  have  Hose  see  it,  and  get  his  impressions." 


400  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  I've  an  idea  Rose  wouldn't  approve  of  it.  His 
mother  says  his  mind  is  turning  more  and  more  to 
philanthropy." 

Kenby  could  not  forego  such  a  chance  to  speak  of 
Mrs.  Adding.  "  It's  one  of  the  prettiest  things  to  see 
how  she  understands  Rose,  It's  charming  to  see  them 
together.  She  wouldn't  have  half  the  attraction  with 
out  him." 

"  Oh,  yes,"  March  assented.  He  had  often  won 
dered  how  a  man  wishing  to  marry  a  widow  managed 
with  the  idea  of  her  children  by  another  marriage ; 
but  if  Kenby  was  honest,  it  was  much  simpler  than 
he  had  supposed.  He  could  not  say  this  to  him, 
however,  and  in  a  certain  embarrassment  he  had  with 
the  conjecture  in  his  presence  he  attempted  a  diver 
sion.  "  We're  promised  something  at  the  Volksfest 
which  will  be  a  great  novelty  to  us  as  Americans. 
Our  driver  told  us  this-morning  that  one  of  the  houses 
there  was  built  entirely  of  wood." 

When  they  reached  the  grounds  of  the  Volksfest, 
this  civil  feature  of  the  great  military  event  at  hand, 
which  the  Marches  had  found  largely  set  forth  in  the 
programme  of  the  parade,  did  not  fully  keep  the 
glowing  promises  made  for  it;  in  fact  it  could  not 
easily  have  done  so.  It  was  in  a  pleasant  neighbor 
hood  of  new  villas  such  as  form  the  modern  quarter 
of  every  German  city,  and  the  Volksfest  was  even 
more  unfinished  than  its  environment.  It  was  not 
yet  enclosed  by  the  fence  which  was  to  hide  its  won 
ders  from  the  non-paying  public,  but  March  and  Ken 
by  went  in  through  an  archway  where  the  gate-money 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  401 

was  as  effectually  collected  from  them  as  if  they  were 
barred  every  other  entrance. 

The  wooden  building  was  easily  distinguishable 
from  the  other  edifices  because  these  were  tents  and 
booths  still  less  substantial.  They  did  not  make  out 
its  function,  but  of  the  others  four  sheltered  merry- 
go-rounds,  four  were  beer-gardens,  four  were  restau 
rants,  and  the  rest  were  devoted  to  amusements  of  the 
usual  country-fair  type.  Apparently  they  had  little 
attraction  for  country  people.  The  Americans  met 
few  peasants  in  the  grounds,  and  neither  at  the  Edi 
son  kinematograph,  where  they  refreshed  their  patriot 
ism  with  some  scenes  of  their  native  life,  nor  at  the 
little  theatre  where  they  saw  the  sports  of  the  arena 
revived  in  the  wrestle  of  a  woman  with  a  bear,  did 
any  of  the  people  except  tradesmen  and  artisans  seem 
to  be  taking  part  in  the  festival  expression  of  the 
popular  pleasure. 

The  woman,  who  finally  threw  the  bear,  whether 
by  slight,  or  by  main  strength,  or  by  a  previous  un 
derstanding  with  him,  was  a  slender  creature,  patheti 
cally  small  and  not  altogether  plain ;  and  March  as 
they  walked  away  lapsed  into  a  pensive  muse  upon 
her  strange  employ.  He  wondered  how  she  came  to 
take  it  up,  and  whether  she  began  with  the  bear  when 
they  were  both  very  young,  and  she  could  easily  throw 
him. 

"  Well,  women  have  a  great  deal  more  strength 
than  we  suppose,"  Kenby  began  with  a  philosophical 
air  that  gave  March  the  hope  of  some  rational  conver 
sation.  Then  his  eye  glazed  with  a  far-off  look,  and 


402  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

a  doting  smile  came  into  his  face.  "  When  we  went 
through  the  Dresden  gallery  together,  Rose  and  I 
were  perfectly  used  up  at  the  end  of  an  hour,  but  his 
mother  kept  on  as  long  as  there  was  anything  to  see, 
and  came  away  as  fresh  as  a  peach." 

Then  March  saw  that  it  was  useless  to  expect  any 
thing  different  from  him,  and  he  let  him  talk  on 
about  Mrs.  Adding  all  the  rest  of  the  way  back  to  the 
hotel.  Kenby  seemed  only  to  have  begun  when  they 
reached  the  door,  and  wanted  to  continue  the  subject 
in  the  reading-room. 

March  pleaded  his  wish  to  find  how  his  wife  had 
got  through  the  afternoon,  and  he  escaped  to  her. 
He  would  have  told  her  now  that  Kenby  was  in  the 
house,  but  he  was  really  so  sick  of  the  fact  himself 
that  he  could  not  speak  of  it  at  once,  and  he  let  her 
go  on  celebrating  all  she  had  seen  from  the  window 
since  she  had  waked  from  her  long  nap.  She  said 
she  could  never  be  glad  enough  that  they  had  come 
just  at  that  time.  Soldiers  had  been  going  by  the 
whole  afternoon,  and  that  made  it  so  feudal. 

"  Yes,"  he  assented.  "  But  aren't  you  coming  up 
to  the  station  with  me  to  see  the  Prince-Regent  ar 
rive  ?  He's  due  at  seven,  you  know." 

"  I  declare  I  had  forgotten  all  about  it.  No,  I'm 
not  equal  to  it.  You  must  go;  you  can  tell  me  every 
thing  ;  be  sure  to  notice  how  the  Princess  Maria  looks ; 
the  last  of  the  Stuarts,  you  know ;  and  some  people 
consider  her  the  rightful  Queen  of  England;  and  Til 
have  the  supper  ordered,  and  we  can  go  down  as  soon 
as  you've  got  back." 


LV. 

MARCH  felt  rather  shabby  stealing  away  without 
Kenby ;  but  he  had  really  had  as  much  of  Mrs.  Add 
ing  as  he  could  stand,  for  one  day,  and  he  was  even 
beginning  to  get  sick  of  Rose.  Besides,  he  had  not 
sent  back  a  line  for  Every  Other  Week  yet,  and  he 
had  made  up  his  mind  to  write  a  sketch  of  the  ma- 
iiosuvres.  To  this  end  he  wished  to  receive  an  impres 
sion  of  the  Prince-Regent's  arrival  which  should  not 
be  blurred  or  clouded  by  other  interests.  His  wife 
knew  the  kind  of  thing  he  liked  to  see,  and  would 
have  helped  him  out  with  his  observations,  but  Kenby 
would  have  got  in  the  way,  and  would  have  clogged 
the  movement  of  his  fancy  in  assigning  the  facts  to 
the  parts  he  would  like  them  to  play  in  the  sketch. 

At  least  he  made  some  such  excuses  to  himself 
as  he  hurried  along  toward  the  Kaiserstrasse.  The 
draught  of  universal  interest  in  that  direction  had  left 
the  other  streets  almost  deserted,  but  as  he  approached 
the  thoroughfare  he  found  all  the  ways  blocked,  and 
the  horse-cars,  ordinarily  so  furiously  headlong,  ar 
rested  by  the  multiple  ranks  of  spectators  on  the 


404  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

sidewalks.  The  avenue  leading  from  the  railway 
station  to  the  palace  was  decorated  with  flags  and 

•*•  O 

garlands,  and  planted  with  the  stems  of  young  firs  and 
birches.  The  doorways  were  crowded,  and  the  win 
dows  dense  with  eager  faces  peering  out  of  the  draped 
bunting.  The  carriageway  was  kept  clear  by  mild 
policemen  who  now  and  then  allowed  one  of  the 
crowd  to  cross  it. 

The  crowd  was  made  up  mostly  of  women  and 
boys,  and  when  March  joined  them,  they  had  already 
been  waiting  an  hour  for  the  sight  of  the  princes  who 
were  to  bless  them  with  a  vision  of  the  faery  race 
which  kings  always  are  to  common  men.  He  thought 
the  people  looked  dull,  and  therefore  able  to  bear  the 
strain  of  expectation  with  patience  better  than  a  live 
lier  race.  They  relieved  it  by  no  attempt  at  joking ; 
here  and  there  a  dim  smile  dawned  on  a  weary  face, 
but  it  seemed  an  effect  of  amiability  rather  than 
humor.  There  was  so  little  of  this,  or  else  it  was  so 
well  bridled  by  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion,  that  not 
a  man,  woman,  or  child  laughed  when  a  bareheaded 
maid-servant  broke  through  the  lines  and  ran  down 
between  them  with  a  life-size  plaster  bust  of  the  Em 
peror  William  in  her  arms:  she  carried  it  like  an 
overgrown  infant,  and  in  alarm  at  her  conspicuous 
part  she  cast  frightened  looks  from  side  to  side 
without  arousing  any  sort  of  notice.  Undeterred  by 
her  failure,  a  young  dog,  parted  from  his  owner,  and 
seeking  him  in  the  crowd,  pursued  his  search  in  a 
wild  flight  down  the  guarded  roadway  with  an  air  of 
anxiety  that  in  America  would  have  won  him  thunders 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  405 

of  applause,  and  all  sorts  of  kindly  encouragements 
to  greater  speed.  But  this  German  crowd  witnessed 
his  progress  apparently  without  interest,  and  without 
a  sign  of  pleasure.  They  were  there  to  see  the  Prince- 
Regent  arrive,  and  they  did  not  suffer  themselves  to 
he  distracted  by  any  preliminary  excitement.  Sud 
denly  the  indefinable  emotion  which  expresses  the 
fulfilment  of  expectation  in  a  waiting  crowd  passed 
through  the  multitude,  and  before  he  realized  it 
March  was  looking  into  the  friendly  gray-bearded  face 
of  the  Prince-Regent,  for  the  moment  that  his  carriage 
allowed  in  passing.  This  came  first  preceded  by  four 
outriders,  and  followed  by  other  simple  equipages  of 
Bavarian  blue,  full  of  highnesses  of  all  grades.  Be 
side  the  Regent  sat  his  daughter-in-law,  the  Princess 
Maria,  her  silvered  hair  framing  a  face  as  plain  and 
good  as  the  Regent's,  if  not  so  intelligent. 

He,  in  virtue  of  having  been  born  in  Wiirzburg,  is 
officially  supposed  to  be  specially  beloved  by  his  fel 
low  townsmen ;  and  they  now  testified  their  affection 
as  he  whirled  through  their  ranks,  bowing  right  and 
left,  by  what  passes  in  Germany  for  a  cheer.  It  is 
the  word  Hock,  groaned  forth  from  abdominal  depths, 
and  dismally  prolonged  in  a  hollow  roar  like  that 
which  the  mob  makes  behind  the  scenes  at  the  theatre 
before  bursting  in  visible  tumult  on  the  stage.  Then 
the  crowd  dispersed,  and  March  came  away  wondering 
why  such  a  kindly-looking  Prince-Regent  should  not 
have  given  them  a  little  longer  sight  of  himself,  after 
they  had  waited  so  patiently  for  hours  to  see  him. 
But  doubtless  in  those  countries,  he  concluded,  the 


406          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

art  of  keeping  the  sovereign  precious  by  suffering  him 
to  be  rarely  and  briefly  seen  is  wisely  studied. 

On  his  way  home  he  resolved  to  confess  Kenby's 
presence ;  and  he  did  so  as  soon  as  he  sat  down  to 
supper  with  his  wife.  "  I  ought  to  have  told  you  the 
first  thing  after  breakfast.  But  when  I  found  you  in 
that  mood  of  having  the  place  all  to  ourselves,  I  put 
it  off." 

"  You  took  terrible  chances,  my  dear,"  she  said, 
gravely. 

"  And  I  have  been  terribly  punished.  You've  no 
idea  how  much  Kenby  has  talked  to  me  about  Mrs. 
Adding ! " 

She  broke  out  laughing.  "  Well,  perhaps  you've 
suffered  enough.  But  you  can  see  now,  can't  you, 
that  it  would  have  been  awful  if  I  had  met  him,  and 
let  out  that  I  didn't  know  he  was  here  ? " 

"  Terrible.  But  if  I  had  told,  it  would  have  spoiled 
the  whole  morning  for  you ;  you  couldn't  have  thought 
of  anything  else." 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  she  said,  airily.  "What 
should  you  think  if  I  told  you  I  had  known  he  was 
here  ever  since  last  night  ? "  She  went  on  in  delight 
at  the  start  he  gave.  "  I  saw  him  come  into  the  hotel 
while  you  were  gone  for  the  guide-books,  and  I  de 
termined  to  keep  it  from  you  as  long  as  I  could ;  I 
knew  it  would  worry  you.  We've  both  been  very 
nice ;  and  I  forgive  you,"  she  hurried  on,  "  because 
I've  really  got  something  to  tell  you." 

"  Don't  tell  me  that  Burnamy  is  here  !  " 

"  Don't  jump  to  conclusions  !     No,  Burnamy  isn't 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  407 

here,  poor  fellow  !  And  don't  suppose  that  I'm  guilty 
of  concealment  because  I  haven't  told  you  before.  I 
was  just  thinking  whether  I  wouldn't  spare  you  till 
morning,  but  now  I  shall  let  you  take  the  brunt  of  it. 
Mrs.  Adding  and  Hose  are  here."  She  gave  the  fact 
time  to  sink  in,  and  then  she  added,  "  And  Miss  Tris- 
coe  and  her  father  are  here." 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  Major  Eltwin  and  his 
wife  being  here,  too  ?  Are  they  in  our  hotel  ? " 

"  No,  they  are  not.  They  came  to  look  for  rooms 
while  you  were  off  waiting  for  the  Prince-Regent,  and 
I  saw  them.  They  intended  to  go  to  Frankfort  for 
the  manreuvres,  but  they  heard  that  there  was  not 
even  standing-room  there,  and  so  the  general  tele 
graphed  to  the  Spanischer  Hof,  and  they  all  came 
here.  As  it  is,  he  will  have  to  room  with  Rose,  and 
Agatha  and  Mrs.  Adding  will  room  together.  I  didn't 
think  Agatha  was  looking  very  well ;  she  looked  un 
happy;  I  don't  believe  she's  heard  from  Burnamy 
yet;  I  hadn't  a  chance  to  ask  her.  And  there's  some 
thing  else  that  I'm  afraid  will  fairly  make  you  sick." 

"  Oh,  no ;  go  on.  I  don't  think  anything  can  do 
that,  after  an  afternoon  of  Kenby's  confidences." 

"  It's  worse  than  Kenby,"  she  said  with  a  sigh. 
"  You  know  I  told  you  at  Carlsbad  I  thought  that 
ridiculous  old  thing  was  making  up  to  Mrs.  Adding." 

"Kenby?     Why  of  co— " 

"  Don't  be  stupid,  my  dear  !  No,  not  Kenby :  Gen 
eral  Triscoe.  I  wish  you  could  have  been  here  to  see 
him  paying  her  all  sorts  of  silly  attentions,  and  hear 
him  making  her  compliments." 


408  -THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  Thank  you.  I  think  I'm  just  as  well  without  it. 
Did  she  pay  him  silly  attentions  and  compliments, 
too  ? " 

"  That's  the  only  thing  that  can  make  me  forgive 
her  for  his  wanting  her.  She  was  keeping  him  at 
arm's-length  the  whole  time,  and  she  was  doing  it  so 
as  not  to  make  him  contemptible  before  his  daughter." 

"  It  must  have  been  hard.     And  Rose  ? " 

"  Rose  didn't  seem  very  well.  He  looks  thin  and 
pale;  but  he's  sweeter  than  ever.  She's  certainly 
commoner  clay  than  Rose.  No,  I  won't  say  that !  It's 
really  nothing  but  General  Triscoe's  being  an  old 
goose  about  her  that  makes  her  seem  so,  and  it  isn't 
fair." 

March  went  down  to  his  coffee  in  the  morning 
with  the  delicate  duty  of  telling  Kenby  that  Mrs. 
Adding  was  in  town.  Kenby  seemed  to  think  it  quite 
natural  she  should  wish  to  see  the  manoeuvres,  and 
not  at  all  strange  that  she  should  come  to  them  with 
General  Triscoe  and  his  daughter.  He  asked  if  March 
would  not  go  with  him  to  call  upon  her  after  break 
fast,  and  as  this  was  in  the  line  of  his  own  instructions 
from  Mrs.  March,  he  went. 

They  found  Mrs.  Adding  with  the  Triscoes,  and 
March  saw  nothing  that  was  not  merely  friendly,  or 
at  the  most  fatherly,  in  the  general's  behavior  toward 
her.  If  Mrs.  Adding  or  Miss  Triscoe  saw  more,  they 
hid  it  in  a  guise  of  sisterly  affection  for  each  other. 
At  the  most  the  general  showed  a  gayety  which  one 
would  not  have  expected  of  him  under  any  conditions, 
and  which  the  fact  that  he  and  Rose  had  kept  each 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  409 

other  awake  a  good  deal  the  night  before  seemed  so 
little  adapted  to  call  out.  He  joked  with  Rose  about 
their  room  and  their  beds,  and  put  on  a  comradery 
with  him  that  was  not  a  perfect  fit,  and  that  suffered 
by  contrast  with  the  pleasure  of  the  boy  and  Kenby 
in  meeting.  There  was  a  certain  question  in  the 
attitude  of  Mrs.  Adding  till  March  helped  Kenby  to 
account  for  his  presence ;  then  she  relaxed  in  an  effect 
of  security  so  tacit  that  words  overstate  it,  and  began 
to  make  fun  of  Rose. 

March  could  not  find  that  Miss  Triscoe  looked  un 
happy,  as  his  wife  had  said ;  he  thought  simply  that 
she  had  grown  plainer ;  but  when  he  reported  this, 
she  lost  her  patience  with  him.  In  a  girl,  she  said, 
plainness  was  unhappiness ;  and  she  wished  to  know 
when  he  would  ever  learn  to  look  an  inch  below  the 
surface.  She  was  sure  that  Agatha  Triscoe  had  not 
heard  from  Burnamy  since  the  Emperor's  birthday ; 
that  she  was  at  swords' -points  with  her  father,  and  so 
desperate  that  she  did  not  care  what  became  of  her. 

He  had  left  Kenby  with  the  others,  and  now,  after 
his  wife  had  talked  herself  tired  of  them  all,  he  pro 
posed  going  out  again  to  look  about  the  city,  where 
there  was  nothing  for  the  moment  to  remind  them  of 
the  presence  of  their  friends  or  even  of  their  existence. 
She  answered  that  she  was  worrying  about  all  those 
people,  and  trying  to  work  out  their  problem  for 
them.  He  asked  why  she  did  not  let  them  work  it 
out  themselves  as  they  would  have  to  do,  after  all  her 
worry,  and  she  said  that  where  her  sympathy  had 
been  excited  she  could  not  stop  worrying,  whether  it 


410  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

did  any  good  or  not,  and  she  could  not  respect  any 
one  who  could  drop  things  so  completely  out  of  his 
mind  as  he  could ;  she  had  never  been  able  to  respect 
that  in  him. 

"  I  know,  my  dear,"  he  assented.  "  But  I  don't 
think  it's  a  question  of  moral  responsibility ;  it's  a 
question  of  mental  structure,  isn't  it?  Your  con 
sciousness  isn't  built  in  thought-tight  compartments, 
and  one  emotion  goes  all  through  it,  and  sinks  you ; 
but  I  simply  close  the  doors  and  shut  the  emotion 
in,  and  keep  on." 

The  fancy  pleased  him  so  much  that  he  worked  it 
out  in  all  its  implications,  and  could  not,  after  their 
long  experience  of  each  other,  realize  that  she  was  not 
enjoying  the  joke  too,  till  she  said  she  saw  that  he 
merely  wished  to  tease.  Then,  too  late,  he  tried  to 
share  her  worry ;  but  she  protested  that  she  was  not 
worrying  at  all ;  that  she  cared  nothing  about  those 
people  :  that  she  was  nervous,  she  was  tired ;  and  she 
wished  he  would  leave  her,  and  go  out  alone. 

He  found  himself  in  the  street  again,  and  he  per 
ceived  that  he  must  be  walking  fast  when  a  voice 
called  him  by  name,  and  asked  him  what  his  hurry 
was.  The  voice  was  Stoller's,  who  got  into  step  with 
him  and  followed  the  first  with  a  second  question. 

"  Made  up  your  mind  to  go  to  the  manoeuvres  with 
me?" 

His  bluntness  made  it  easy  for  March  to  answer: 
"  I'm  afraid  my  wife  couldn't  stand  the  drive  back 
and  forth." 

"  Come  without  her." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  411 

"  Thank  you.  It's  very  kind  of  you.  I'm  not  cer 
tain  that  I  shall  go  at  all.  If  I  do,  I  shall  run  out  by 
train,  and  take  my  chances  with  the  crowd." 

Stoller  insisted  no  further.  He  felt  no  offence  at 
the  refusal  of  his  offer,  or  chose  to  show  none.  He 
said,  with  the  same  uncouth  abruptness  as  before: 
"  Heard  anything  of  that  fellow  since  he  left  Carls 
bad?" 

"  Burnamy  ? " 

«  Mm." 

"No." 

"  Know  where  he  is  ? " 

"  I  don't  in  the  least." 

Stoller  let  another  silence  elapse  while  they  hurried 
on,  before  he  said,  "  I  got  to  thinking  what  he  done 
— afterwards.  He  wasn't  bound  to  look  out  for  me  ; 
he  might  suppose  I  knew  what  I  was  about." 

March  turned  his  face  and  stared  in  Stoller's,  which 
he  was  letting  hang  forward  as  he  stamped  heavily 
on.  Had  the  disaster  proved  less  than  he  had  feared, 
and  did  he  still  want  Burnamy's  help  in  patching  up 
the  broken  pieces ;  or  did  he  really  wish  to  do  Bur 
namy  justice  to  his  friend  ? 

In  any  case  March's  duty  was  clear.  "  I  think 
Burnamy  was  bound  to  look  out  for  you,  Mr.  Stoller, 
and  I  am  glad  to  know  that  he  saw  it  in  the  same 
light." 

"  I  know  he  did,"  said  Stoller  with  a  blaze  as  from 
a  long-smouldering  fury,  "  and  damn  him,  I'm  not 
going  to  have  it.  I'm  not  going  to  plead  the  baby 
act  with  him,  or  with  any  man.  You  tell  him  so, 


412  THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

when  you  get  the  chance.  You  tell  him  I  don't  hold 
him  accountable  for  anything  I  made  him  do.  That 
ain't  business  ;  I  don't  want  him  around  me,  any  more ; 
but  if  he  wants  to  go  back  to  the  paper  he  can  have 
his  place.  You  tell  him  I  stand  by  what  I  done ;  and 
it's  all  right  between  him  and  me.  I  hain't  done 
anything  about  it,  the  way  I  wanted  him  to  help  me 
to  ;  I've  let  it  lay,  and  I'm  a-going  to.  I  guess  it  ain't 
going  to  do  me  any  harm,  after  all ;  our  people  hain't 
got  very  long  memories ;  but  if  it  is,  let  it.  You  tell 
him  it's  all  right." 

"  I  don't  know  where  he  is,  Mr.  Stoller,  and  I  don't 
know  that  I  care  to  be  the  bearer  of  your  message," 
said  March. 

"  Why  not  ?  " 

"  Why,  for  one  thing,  I  don't  agree  with  you  that 
it's  all  right.  Your  choosing  to  stand  by  the  conse 
quences  of  Burnamy's  wrong  doesn't  undo  it.  As  I 
understand,  you  don't  pardon  it — " 

Stoller  gulped  and  did  not  answer  at  once.  Then 
he  said,  "  I  stand  by  what  I  done.  I'm  not  going  to 
let  him  say  I  turned  him  down  for  doing  what  I  told 
him  to,  because  I  hadn't  the  sense  to  know  what  I 
was  about." 

"  Ah,  I  don't  think  it's  a  thing  he'll  like  to  speak 
of  in  any  case,"  said  March. 

Stoller  left  him,  at  the  corner  they  had  reached,  as 
abruptly  as  he  had  joined  him,  and  March  hurried 
back  to  his  wife,  and  told  her  what  had  just  passed 
between  him  and  Stoller. 

She  broke  out,  "  Well,  I  am  surprised  at  you,  my 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  413 

dear !  You  have  always  accused  me  of  suspecting 
people,  and  attributing  bad  motives ;  and  here  you've 
refused  even  to  give  the  poor  man  the  benefit  of  the 
doubt.  He  merely  wanted  to  save  his  savage  pride 
with  you,  and  that's  all  he  wants  to  do  with  Burnamy. 
How  could  it  hurt  the  poor  boy  to  know  that  Stoller 
doesn't  blame  him  ?  Why  should  you  refuse  to  give 
his  message  to  Burnamy  ?  I  don't  want  you  to  ridi 
cule  me  for  my  conscience  any  more,  Basil ;  you're 
twice  as  bad  as  I  ever  was.  Don't  you  think  that  a 
person  can  ever  expiate  an  offence  ?  I've  often  heard 
you  say  that  if  any  one  owned  his  fault,  he  put  it 
from  him,  and  it  was  the  same  as  if  it  hadn't  been ; 
and  hasn't  Burnamy  owned  up  over  and  over  again  ? 
I'm  astonished  at  you,  dearest." 

March  was  in  fact  somewhat  astonished  at  himself 
in  the  light  of  her  reasoning ;  but  she  went  on  with 
some  sophistries  that  restored  him  to  his  self-right 
eousness. 

"  I  suppose  you  think  he  has  interfered  with  Stol- 
ler's  political  ambition,  and  injured  him  in  that  way. 
Well,  what  if  he  has  ?  Would  it  be  a  good  thing  to 
have  a  man  like  that  succeed  in  politics  ?  You're 
always  saying  that  the  low  character  of  our  politicians 
is  the  ruin  of  the  country ;  and  I'm  sure,"  she  added, 
with  a  prodigious  leap  over  all  the  sequences,  "  that 
Mr.  Stoller  is  acting  nobly  ;  and  it's  your  duty  to  help 
him  relieve  Burnamy's  mind."  At  the  laugh  he  broke 
into  she  hastened  to  say,  "  Or  if  you  won't,  I  hope 
you'll  not  object  to  my  doing  so,  for  I  shall,  anyway  !  " 

She  rose  as  if  she  were  going  to  begin  at  once,  in 


414  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

spite  of  his  laughing;  and  in  fact  she  had  already  a 
plan  for  coming  to  Stoller's  assistance  by  getting  at 
Burnamy  through  Miss  Triscoe,  whom  she  suspected 
of  knowing  where  he  was.  There  had  been  no  chance 
for  them  to  speak  of  him  either  that  morning  or  the 
evening  before,  and  after  a  great  deal  of  controversy 
with  herself  in  her  husband's  presence  she  decided  to 
wait  till  they  came  naturally  together  the  next  morn 
ing  for  the  walk  to  the  Capuchin  Church  on  the  hill 
beyond  the  river,  which  they  had  agreed  to  take. 
She  could  not  keep  from  writing  a  note  to  Miss  Tris 
coe  begging  her  to  be  sure  to  come,  and  hinting  that 
she  had  something  very  important  to  speak  of. 

She  was  not  sure  but  she  had  been  rather  silly  to 
do  this,  but  when  they  met  the  girl  confessed  that  she 
had  thought  of  giving  up  the  walk,  and  might  not 
have  come  except  for  Mrs.  March's  note.  She  had 
come  with  Rose,  and  had  left  him  below  with  March ; 
Mrs.  Adding  was  coming  later  with  Kenby  and  Gen 
eral  Triscoe. 

Mrs.  March  lost  no  time  in  telling  her  the  great 
news;  and  if  she  had  been  in  doubt  before  of  the 
girl's  feeling  for  Burnamy  she  was  now  in  none.  She 
had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  her  flush  with  hope,  and 
then  the  pain  which  was  also  a  pleasure,  of  seeing  her 
blanch  with  dismay. 

"  I  don't  know  where  he  is,  Mrs.  March.  I  haven't 
heard  a  word  from  him  since  that  night  in  Carlsbad. 
I  expected — I  didn't  know  but  you — " 

Mrs.  March  shook  her  head.  She  treated  the  fact 
skilfully  as  something  to  be  regretted  simply  because 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  415 

it  would  be  such  a  relief  to  Burnamy  to  know  how 
Mr.  Stoller  now  felt.  Of  course  they  could  reach 
him  somehow  ;  you  could  always  get  letters  to  people 
in  Europe,  in  the  end ;  and,  in  fact,  it  was  altogether 
probable  that  he  was  that  very  instant  in  Wurzburg ; 
for  if  the  New  York-Paris  Chronicle  had  wanted  him 
to  write  up  the  Wagner  operas,  it  would  certainly  want 
him  to  write  up  the  manoauvres.  She  established  his 
presence  in  Wurzburg  by  such  an  irrefragable  chain 
of  reasoning  that,  at  a  knock  outside,  she  was  just 
able  to  keep  back  a  scream,  while  she  ran  to  open 
the  door.  It  was  not  Burnamy,  as  in  compliance  with 
every  nerve  it  ought  to  have  been,  but  her  husband, 
who  tried  to  justify  his  presence  by  saying  that  they 
were  all  waiting  for  her  and  Miss  Triscoe,  and  asked 
when  they  were  coming. 

She  frowned  him  silent,  and  then  shut  herself  out 
side  with  him  long  enough  to  whisper,  "  Say  she's  got 
a  headache,  or  anything  you  please  ;  but  don't  stop 
talking  here  with  me,  or  I  shall  go  wild."  She  then 
shut  herself  in  again,  with  the  effect  of  holding  him 
accountable  for  the  whole  affair. 


LVI. 

GENERAL  Triscoe  could  not  keep  his  irritation,  at 
hearing  that  his  daughter  was  not  coming,  out  of  the 
excuses  he  made  to  Mrs.  Adding ;  he  said  again  and 
again  that  it  must  seem  like  a  discourtesy  to  her.  She 
gayly  disclaimed  any  such  notion  ;  she  would  not  hear 
of  putting  off  their  excursion  to  another  day ;  it  had 
been  raining  just  long  enough  to  give  them  a  reason 
able  hope  of  a  few  hours'  drought,  and  they  might 
not  have  another  dry  spell  for  weeks.  She  slipped 
off  her  jacket  after  they  started,  and  gave  it  to  Kenby, 
but  she  let  General  Triscoe  hold  her  umbrella  over 
her,  while  he  limped  beside  her.  She  seemed  to 
March,  as  he  followed  with  Rose,  to  be  playing  the 
two  men  off  against  each  other,  with  an  ease  which 
he  wished  his  wife  could  be  there  to  see,  and  to  judge 
aright. 

They  crossed  by  the  Old  Bridge,  which  is  of  the 
earliest  years  of  the  seventh  century,  between  rows  of 
saints  whose  statues  surmount  the  piers.  Some  are 
bishops  as  well  as  saints  ;  one  must  have  been  at  Rome 
in  his  day,  for  he  wore  his  long  thick  beard  in  the 
fashion  of  Michelangelo's  Moses.  He  stretched  out 


THEIR   SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  417 

toward  the  passers  two  fingers  of  blessing  and  was 
unaware  of  the  sparrow  which  had  lighted  on  them 
and  was  giving  him  the  effect  of  offering  it  to  the 
public  admiration.  Squads  of  soldiers  tramping  by 
turned  to  look  and  smile,  and  the  dull  faces  of  citi 
zens  lighted  up  at  the  quaint  sight.  Some  children 
stopped  and  remained  very  quiet,  not  to  scare  away 
the  bird;  and  a  cold-faced,  spiritual-looking  priest 
paused  among  them  as  if  doubting  whether  to  rescue 
the  absent-minded  bishop  from  a  situation  derogatory 
to  his  dignity  ;  but  he  passed  on,  and  then  the  spar 
row  suddenly  flew  off. 

Rose  Adding  had  lingered  for  the  incident  with 
March,  but  they  now  pushed  on,  and  came  up  with 
the  others  at  the  end  of  the  bridge,  where  they  found 
them  in  question  whether  they  had  not  better  take  a 
carriage  and  drive  to  the  foot  of  the  hill  before  they 
began  their  climb.  March  thanked  them,  but  said  he 
was  keeping  up  the  terms  of  his  cure,  and  was  getting 
in  all  the  walking  he  could.  Rose  begged  his  mother 
not  to  include  him  in  the  driving  party  ;  he  protested 
that  he  was  feeling  so  well,  and  the  walk  was  doing 
him  good.  His  mother  consented,  if  he  would  prom 
ise  not  to  get  tired,  and  then  she  mounted  into  the 
two-spanner  which  had  driven  instinctively  up  to  their 
party  when  their  parley  began,  and  General  Triscoe 
took  the  place  beside  her,  while  Kenby,  with  smiling 
patience,  seated  himself  in  front. 

Rose  kept  on  talking  with  March  about  Wiirzburg 
and  its  history,  which  it  seemed  he  had  been  reading 
the  night  before  when  he  could  not  sleep.  He  ex- 
AA 


418  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

plained,  "  We  get  little  histories  of  the  places  wher 
ever  we  go.  That's  what  Mr.  Kenby  does,  you  know." 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  March. 

"  I  don't  suppose  I  shall  get  a  chance  to  read  much 
here,"  Rose  continued,  "  with  General  Triscoe  in  the 
room.  He  doesn't  like  the  light." 

"  Well,  well.  He's  rather  old,  you  know.  And 
you  musn't  read  too  much,  Rose.  It  isn't  good  for 
you." 

"  I  know,  but  if  I  don't  read,  I  think,  and  that 
keeps  me  awake  worse.  Of  course,  I  respect  General 
Triscoe  for  being  in  the  war,  and  getting  wounded," 
the  boy  suggested. 

"  A  good  many  did  it,"  March  was  tempted  to  say. 

The  boy  did  not  notice  his  insinuation.  "  I  sup 
pose  there  were  some  things  they  did  in  the  army,  and 
then  they  couldn't  get  over  the  habit.  But  General 
Grant  says  in  his  Life  that  he  never  used  a  profane 
expletive." 

"  Does  General  Triscoe  ? " 

Rose  answered  reluctantly,  "  If  anything  wakes  him 
in  the  night,  or  if  he  can't  make  these  German  beds 
over  to  suit  him — " 

"  I  see."  March  turned  his  face  to  hide  the  smile 
which  he  would  not  have  let  the  boy  detect.  He 
thought  best  not  to  let  Rose  resume  his  impressions 
of  the  general ;  and  in  talk  of  weightier  matters  they 
found  themselves  at  that  point  of  the  climb  where  the 
carriage  was  waiting  for  them.  From  this  point  they 
followed  an  alley  through  ivied  garden  walls,  till  they 
reached  the  first  of  the  balustraded  terraces  which 


THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY.          419 

ascend  to  the  crest  of  the  hill  where  the  church  stands. 
Each  terrace  is  planted  with  sycamores,  and  the  face 
of  the  terrace  wall  supports  a  bass-relief  commemorat 
ing  with  the  drama  of  its  life-size  figures  the  stations 
of  the  cross. 

Monks  and  priests  were  coming  and  going,  and 
dropped  on  the  steps  leading  from  terrace  to  terrace 
were  women  and  children  on  their  knees  in  prayer. 
It  was  all  richly  reminiscent  of  pilgrim  scenes  in  other 
Catholic  lands ;  but  here  there  was  a  touch  of  earnest 
in  the  Northern  face  of  the  worshippers  which  the 
South  had  never  imparted.  Even  in  the  beautiful 
rococo  interior  of  the  church  at  the  top  of  the  hill 
there  was  a  sense  of  something  deeper  and  truer  than 
mere  ecclesiasticism ;  and  March  came  out  of  it  in  a 
serious  muse  which  the  boy  at  his  side  did  nothing  to 
interrupt.  A  vague  regret  filled  his  heart  as  he  gazed 
silently  out  over  the  prospect  of  river  and  city  and 
vineyard,  purpling  together  below  the  top  where  he 
stood,  and  mixed  with  this  regret  was  a  vague  resent 
ment  of  his  wife's  absence.  She  ought  to  have  been 
there  to  share  his  pang  and  his  pleasure ;  they  had  so 
long  enjoyed  everything  together  that  without  her  he 
felt  unable  to  get  out  of  either  emotion  all  there  was 
in  it. 

The  forgotten  boy  stole  silently  down  the  terraces 
after  the  rest  of  the  party  who  had  left  him  behind 
with  March.  At  the  last  terrace  they  stopped  and 
waited ;  and  after  a  delay  that  began  to  be  long  to 
Mrs.  Adding,  she  wondered  aloud  what  could  have 
become  of  them. 


420          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

Kenby  promptly  offered  to  go  back  and  see,  and 
she  consented  in  seeming  to  refuse :  "  It  isn't  worth 
while.  Rose  has  probably  got  Mr.  March  into  some 
deep  discussion,  and  they've  forgotten  all  about  us. 
But  if  you  will  go,  Mr.  Kenby,  you  might  just  remind 
Rose  of  my  existence."  She  let  him  lay  her  jacket 
on  her  shoulders  before  he  left  her,  and  then  she  sat 
down  on  one  of  the  steps,  which  General  Triscoe  kept 
striking  with  the  point  of  her  umbrella  as  he  stood 
before  her. 

"  I  really  shall  have  to  take  it  from  you  if  you  do 
that  any  more,"  she  said,  laughing  up  in  his  face. 
"  I'm  serious." 

He  stopped.  "I  wish  I  could  believe  you  were 
serious,  for  a  moment." 

"  You  may,  if  you  think  it  will  do  you  any  good. 
But  I  don't  see  why." 

The  general  smiled,  but  with  a  kind  of  tremulous 
eagerness  which  might  have  been  pathetic  to  any  one 
who  liked  him.  "  Do  you  know  this  is  almost  the 
first  time  I  have  spoken  alone  with  you  ? " 

"  Really,  I  hadn't  noticed,"  said  Mr.s.  Adding. 

General  Triscoe  laughed  in  rather  a  ghastly  way. 
"  Well,  that's  encouraging,  at  least,  to  a  man  who's 
had  his  doubts  whether  it  wasn't  intended." 

"  Intended  ?  By  whom  ?  What  do  you  mean, 
General  Triscoe  ?  Why  in  the  world  shouldn't  you 
have  spoken  alone  with  me  before  ? " 

He  was  not,  with  all  his  eagerness,  ready  to  say, 
and  while  she  smiled  pleasantly  she  had  the  look  in 
her  eyes  of  being  brought  to  bay  and  being  prepared, 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  421 

if  it  must  come  to  that,  to  have  the  worst  over,  then 
and  there.  She  was  not  half  his  age,  but  he  was 
aware  of  her  having  no  respect  for  his  years;  com 
pared  with  her  average  American  past  as  he  under 
stood  it,  his  social  place  was  much  higher,  but  she 
was  not  in  the  least  awed  by  it ;  in  spite  of  his  war 
record  she  was  making  him  behave  like  a  coward.  He 
was  in  a  false  position,  and  if  he  had  any  one  but 
himself  to  blame  he  had  not  her.  He  read  her  equal 
knowledge  of  these  facts  in  the  clear  eyes  that  made 
him  flush  and  turn  his  own  away. 

Then  he  started  with  a  quick  "  Hello  ! "  and  stood 
staring  up  at  the  steps  from  the  terrace  above,  where 
Rose  Adding  was  staying  himself  weakly  by  a  clutch 
of  Kenby  on  one  side  and  March  on  the  other. 

His  mother  looked  round  and  caught  herself  up 
from  where  she  sat  and  ran  toward  him.  "  Oh, 
Rose ! " 

"  It's  nothing,  mother,"  he  called  to  her,  and  as  she 
dropped  on  her  knees  before  him  he  sank  limply 
against  her.  "It  was  like  what  I  had  in  Carlsbad; 
that's  all.  Don't  worry  about  me,  please  ! " 

"I'm  not  worrying,  Rose,"  she  said  with  courage 
of  the  same  texture  as  his  own.  "  You've  been  walk 
ing  too  much.  You  must  go  back  in  the  carriage  with 
us.  Can't  you  have  it  come  here  ?  "  she  asked  Kenby. 

"  There's  no  road,  Mrs.  Adding.  But  if  Rose 
would  let  me  carry  him — 

"  I  can  walk,"  the  boy  protested,  trying  to  lift  him 
self  from  her  neck. 

"  No,  no  !  you  mustn't."     She  drew  away  and  let 


422  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

him  fall  into  the  arms  that  Kenby  put  round  him. 
He  raised  the  frail  burden  lightly  to  his  shoulder,  and 
moved  strongly  away,  followed  by  the  eyes  of  the 
spectators  who  had  gathered  about  the  little  group, 
but  who  dispersed  now,  and  went  back  to  their  de 
votions. 

March  hurried  after  Kenby  with  Mrs.  Adding, 
whom  he  told  he  had  just  missed  Rose  and  was  look 
ing  about  for  him,  when  Kenby  came  with  her  mes 
sage  for  them.  They  made  sure  that  he  was  nowhere 
about  the  church,  and  then  started  together  down  the 
terraces.  At  the  second  or  third  station  below  they 
found  the  boy  clinging  to  the  barrier  that  protected 
the  bass-relief  from  the  zeal  of  the  devotees.  He 
looked  white  and  sick,  though  he  insisted  that  he  was 
well,  and  when  he  turned  to  come  away  with  them  he 
reeled  and  would  have  fallen  if  Kenby  had  not  caught 
him.  Kenby  wanted  to  carry  him,  but  Rose  would 
not  let  him,  and  had  made  his  way  down  between 
them. 

"  Yes,  he  has  such  a  spirit,"  she  said,  "  and  I've  no 
doubt  he's  suffering  now  more  from  Mr.  Kenby's 
kindness  than  from  his  own  sickness.  He  had  one 
of  these  giddy  turns  in  Carlsbad,  though,  and  I  shall 
certainly  have  a  doctor  to  see  him." 

"  I  think  I  should,  Mrs.  Adding,"  said  March,  not 
too  gravely,  for  it  seemed  to  him  that  it  was  not  quite 
his  business  to  alarm  her  further,  if  she  was  herself 
taking  the  affair  with  that  seriousness.  He  questioned 
whether  she  was  taking  it  quite  seriously  enough, 
when  she  turned  with  a  laugh,  and  called  to  General 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  423 

Triscoe,  who  was  limping  down  the  steps  of  the  last 
terrace  behind  them: 

"  Oh,  poor  General  Triscoe !  I  thought  you  had 
gone  on  ahead." 

General  Triscoe  could  not  enter  into  the  joke  of 
being  forgotten,  apparently.  He  assisted  with  gravity 
at  the  disposition  of  the  party  for  the  return,  when 
they  all  reached  the  carriage.  Rose  had  the  place 
beside  his  mother,  and  Kenby  wished  March  to  take 
his  with  the  general  and  let  him  sit  with  the  driver; 
but  he  insisted  that  he  would  rather  walk  home,  and 
he  did  walk  till  they  had  driven  out  of  sight.  Then 
he  called  a  passing  one-spanner,  and  drove  to  his 
hotel  in  comfort  and  silence. 


LVII. 

KENBY  did  not  come  to  the  Swan  before  supper; 
then  he  reported  that  the  doctor  had  said  Rose  was 
on  the  verge  of  a  nervous  collapse.  He  had  over 
worked  at  school,  but  the  immediate  trouble  was  the 
high,  thin  air,  which  the  doctor  said  he  must  be  got 
out  of  at  once,  into  a  quiet  place  at  the  sea-shore 
somewhere.  He  had  suggested  Ostend,  or  some  point 
on  the  French  coast ;  Kenby  had  thought  of  Scheven- 
ingen,  and  the  doctor  had  said  that  would  do  admir 
ably. 

"  I  understood  from  Mrs.  Adding,"  he  concluded, 
"  that  you  were  going  there  for  your  after-cure,  Mr. 
March,  and  I  didn't  know  but  you  might  be  going 
soon." 

At  the  mention  of  Scheveningen  the  Marches  had 
looked  at  each  other  with  a  guilty  alarm,  which  they 
both  tried  to  give  the  cast  of  affectionate  sympathy ; 
but  she  dismissed  her  fear  that  he  might  be  going  to 
let  his  compassion  prevail  with  him  to  his  hurt  when 
he  said :  "  Why,  we  ought  to  have  been  there  before 
this,  but  I've  been  taking  my  life  in  my  hands  in  try- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  425 

ing  to  see  a  little  of  Germany,  and  I'm  afraid  now 
that  Mrs.  March  has  her  mind  too  firmly  fixed  on 
Berlin  to  let  me  think  of  going  to  Scheveningen  till 
we've  been  there." 

"  It's  too  bad !  "  said  Mrs.  March,  with  real  regret. 
"  I  wish  we  were  going."  But  she  had  not  the  least 
notion  of  gratifying  her  wish;  and  they  were  all 
silent  till  Kenby  broke  out: 

"Look  here!  You  know  how  I  feel  about  Mrs. 
Adding !  I've  been  pretty  frank  with  Mr.  March 
myself,  and  I've  had  my  suspicions  that  she's  been 
frank  with  you,  Mrs.  March.  There  isn't  any  doubt 
about  my  wanting  to  marry  her,  and  up  to  this  time 
there  hasn't  been  any  doubt  about  her  not  wanting  to 
marry  me.  But  it  isn't  a  question  of  her  or  of  me, 
now.  It's  a  question  of  Rose.  I  love  the  boy,"  and 
Kenby's  voice  shook,  and  he  faltered  a  moment. 
"Pshaw!  You  understand." 

"  Indeed  I  do,  Mr.  Kenby,"  said  Mrs.  March.  "  I 
perfectly  understand  you." 

"  Well,  I  don't  think  Mrs.  Adding  is  fit  to  make 
the  journey  with  him  alone,  or  to  place  herself  in  the 
best  way  after  she  gets  to  Scheveningen.  She's  been 
badly  shaken  up ;  she  broke  down  before  the  doctor ; 
she  said  she  didn't  know  what  to  do ;  I  suppose  she's 
frightened — " 

Kenby  stopped  again,  and  March  asked,  "  When  is 
she  going  ? " 

"To-morrow,"  said  Kenby,  and  he  added,  "And 
now  the  question  is,  why  shouldn't  I  go  with  her  ? " 

Mrs.  March  gave  a  little  start,  and  looked  at  her 


426  THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

husband,  but  he  said  nothing,  and  Kenby  seemed  not 
to  have  supposed  that  he  would  say  anything. 

"  I  know  it  would  be  very  American,  and  all  that, 
but  I  happen  to  be  an  American,  and  it  wouldn't  be 
out  of  character  for  me.  I  suppose,"  he  appealed  to 
Mrs.  March,  "  that  it's  something  I  might  offer  to  do 
if  it  were  from  New  York  to  Florida — and  I  happened 
to  be  going  there  ?  And  I  did  happen  to  be  going  to 
Holland." 

"  Why,  of  course,  Mr.  Kenby,"  she  responded,  with 
such  solemnity  that  March  gave  way  in  an  outrageous 
laugh. 

Kenby  laughed,  and  Mrs.  March  laughed  too,  but 
with  an  inner  note  of  protest. 

"  Well,"  Kenby  continued,  still  addressing  her, 
"  what  I  want  you  to  do  is  to  stand  by  me  when  I 
propose  it." 

Mrs.  March  gathered  strength  to  say,  "  No,  Mr. 
Kenby,  it's  your  own  affair,  and  you  must  take  the 
responsibility." 

"  Do  you  disapprove  ? " 

"  It  isn't  the  same  as  it  would  be  at  home.  You 
see  that  yourself." 

"  Well,"  said  Kenby,  rising,  "  I  have  to  arrange 
about  their  getting  away  to-morrow.  It  won't  be 
easy  in  this  hurly-burly  that's  coming  off." 

"  Give  Rose  our  love ;  and  tell  Mrs.  Adding  that 
I'll  come  round  and  see  her  to-morrow  before  she 
starts." 

"  Oh  !  I'm  afraid  you  can't,  Mrs.  March.  They're 
to  start  at  six  in  the  morning." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  427 

"  They  are !  Then  we  must  go  and  see  them  to 
night.  We'll  be  there  almost  as  soon  as  you  are." 

March  went  up  to  their  rooms  with  his  wife,  and 
she  began  on  the  stairs: 

"  Well,  my  dear,  I  hope  you  realize  that  your 
laughing  so  gave  us  completely  away.  And  what  was 
there  to  keep  grinning  about,  all  through  ? " 

"Nothing  but  the  disingenuous,  hypocritical  pas 
sion  of  love.  It's  always  the  most  amusing  thing  in 
the  world ;  but  to  see  it  trying  to  pass  itself  off  in 
poor  old  Kenby  as  duty  and  humanity,  and  disinter 
ested  affection  for  Rose,  was  more  than  I  could  stand. 
I  don't  apologize  for  laughing;  I  wanted  to  yell." 

His  effrontery  and  his  philosophy  both  helped  to 
save  him ;  and  she  said  from  the  point  where  he  had 
side-tracked  her  mind :  "  I  don't  call  it  disingenuous. 
He  was  brutally  frank.  He's  made  it  impossible  to 
treat  the  affair  with  dignity.  I  want  you  to  leave  the 
whole  thing  to  me,  from  this  out.  Now,  will  you  ?  " 

On  their  way  to  the  Spanischer  Hof  she  arranged 
in  her  own  mind  for  Mrs.  Adding  to  get  a  maid,  and 
for  the  doctor  to  send  an  assistant  with  her  on  the 
journey,  but  she  was  in  such  despair  with  her  scheme 
that  she  had  not  the  courage  to  right  herself  when 
Mrs.  Adding  met  her  with  the  appeal : 

"  Oh,  Mrs.  March,  I'm  so  glad  you  approve  of  Mr. 
Kenby's  plan.  It  does  seem  the  only  thing  to  do.  I 
can't  trust  myself  alone  with  Rose,  and  Mr.  Kenby's 
intending  to  go  to  Scheveningen  a  few  days  later 
anyway.  Though  it's  too  bad  to  let  him  give  up  the 
manoeuvres." 


428  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  I'm  sure  he  won't  mind  that,"  Mrs.  March's  voice 
said  mechanically,  while  her  thought  was  busy  with 
the  question  whether  this  scandalous  duplicity  was 
altogether  Kenby's,  and  whether  Mrs.  Adding  was  as 
guiltless  of  any  share  in  it  as  she  looked.  She  looked 
pitifully  distracted ;  she  might  not  have  understood 
his  report ;  or  Kenby  might  really  have  mistaken  Mrs. 
March's  sympathy  for  favor. 

"  No,  he  only  lives  to  do  good,"  Mrs.  Adding  re 
turned.  "  He's  with  Rose ;  won't  you  come  in  and 
see  them  ? " 

Rose  was  lying  back  on  the  pillows  of  a  sofa,  from 
which  they  would  not  let  him  get  up.  He  was  full  of 
the  trip  to  Holland,  and  had  already  pushed  Kenby, 
as  Kenby  owned,  beyond  the  bounds  of  his  very  gen 
eral  knowledge  of  the  Dutch  language,  which  Rose 
had  plans  for  taking  up  after  they  were  settled  in 
Scheveningen.  The  boy  scoffed  at  the  notion  that  he 
was  not  perfectly  well,  and  he  wished  to  talk  with 
March  on  the  points  where  he  had  found  Kenby 
wanting. 

"Kenby  is  an  encyclopaedia  compared  with  me, 
Rose,"  the  editor  protested,  and  he  amplified  his  ig 
norance  for  the  boy's  good  to  an  extent  which  Rose 
saw  wfes  a  joke.  He  left  Holland  to  talk  about  other 
things  which  his  mother  thought  quite  as  bad  for  him. 
He  wished  to  know  if  March  did  not  think  that  the 
statue  of  the  bishop  with  the  sparrow  on  its  finger  was 
a  subject  for  a  poem ;  and  March  said  gayly  that  if 
.  Rose  would  write  it  he  would  print  it  in  Every  Other 
Week. 


THEIR   SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  429 

The  boy  flushed  with  pleasure  at  his  banter.  "  No, 
I  couldn't  do  it.  But  I  wish  Mr.  Burnamy  had  seen 
it.  He  could.  Will  you  tell  him  about  it  ? "  He 
wanted  to  know  if  March  had  heard  from  Burnamy 
lately,  and  in  the  midst  of  his  vivid  interest  he  gave 
a  weary  sigh. 

His  mother  said  that  now  he  had  talked  enough, 
and  bade  him  say  good-by  to  the  Marches,  who  were 
coming  so  soon  to  Holland,  anyway.  Mrs.  March 
put  her  arms  round  him  to  kiss  him,  and  when  she 
let  him  sink  back  her  eyes  were  dim. 

"  You  see  how  frail  he  is !  "  said  Mrs.  Adding.  "  I 
shall  not  let  him  out  of  my  sight,  after  this,  till  he's 
well  again." 

She  had  a  kind  of  authority  in  sending  Kenby  away 
with  them  which  was  not  lost  upon  the  witnesses. 
He  asked  them  to  come  into  the  reading-room  a  mo 
ment  with  him,  and  Mrs.  March  wondered  if  he  were 
going  to  make  some  excuse  to  her  for  himself ;  but  he 
said :  "  I  don't  know  how  we're  to  manage  about  the 
Triscoes.  The  general  will  have  a  room  to  himself, 
but  if  Mrs.  Adding  takes  Rose  in  with  her,  it  leaves 
Miss  Triscoe  out,  and  there  isn't  a  room  to  be  had  in 
this  house  for  love  or  money.  Do  you  think,"  he 
appealed  directly  to  Mrs.  March,  "  that  it  would  do 
to  offer  her  my  room  at  the  Swan  ? " 

"  Why,  yes,"  she  assented,  with  a  reluctance  rather 
for  the  complicity  in  which  he  had  already  involved 
her,  and  for  which  he  was  still  unpunished,  than  for 
what  he  was  now  proposing.  "  Or  she  could  come  in 
with  me,  and  Mr.  March  could  take  it." 


430          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  Whichever  you  think,"  said  Kenby  so  submiss 
ively  that  she  relented,  to  ask  : 

"  And  what  will  you  do  ? " 

He  laughed.  "  Well,  people  have  been  known  to 
sleep  in  a  chair.  I  shall  manage  somehow." 

"  You  might  offer  to  go  in  with  the  general,"  March 
suggested,  and  the  men  apparently  thought  this  was 
a  joke.  Mrs.  March  did  not  laugh  in  her  feminine 
worry  about  ways  and  means. 

"Where  is  Miss  Triscoe?"  she  asked.  "We 
haven't  seen  them." 

"  Didn't  Mrs.  Adding  tell  you  ?  They  went  to  sup 
per  at  a  restaurant ;  the  general  doesn't  like  the  cook 
ing  here.  They  ought  to  have  been  back  before  this." 

He  looked  up  at  the  clock  on  the  wall,  and  she  said, 
"  I  suppose  you  would  like  us  to  wait." 

"  It  would  be  very  kind  of  you." 

"  Oh,  it's  quite  essential,"  she  returned  with  an 
airy  freshness  which  Kenby  did  not  seem  to  feel  as 
painfully  as  he  ought. 

They  all  sat  down,  and  the  Triscoes  came  in  after  a 
few  minutes,  and  a  cloud  on  the  general's  face  lifted 
at  the  proposition  Kenby  left  Mrs.  March  to  make. 

"  I  thought  that  child  ought  to  be  in  his  mother's 
charge,"  he  said.  With  his  own  comfort  provided 
for,  he  made  no  objections  to  Mrs.  March's  plan ;  and 
Agatha  went  to  take  leave  of  Rose  and  his  mother. 
"  By-the-way,"  the  general  turned  to  March,  "  I  found 
Stoller  at  the  restaurant  where  we  supped.  He  offered 
me  a  place  in  his  carriage  for  the  manoeuvres.  How 
are  you  going  ? " 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  431 

"  I  think  I  shall  go  by  train.  I  don't  fancy  the 
long  drive." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  that  it's  worse  than  the  long 
walk  after  you  leave  the  train,"  said  the  general  from 
the  offence  which  any  difference  of  taste  was  apt  to 
give  him.  "  Are  you  going  by  train,  too  ?  "  he  asked 
Kenby  with  indifference. 

"  I'm  not  going  at  all,"  said  Kenby.  "  I'm  leaving 
Wiirzburg  in  the  morning." 

"  Oh,  indeed,"  said  the  general. 

Mrs,  March  could  not  make  out  whether  he  knew 
that  Kenby  was  going  with  Rose  and  Mrs.  Adding, 
but  she  felt  that  there  must  be  a  full  and  open  recog 
nition  of  the  fact  among  them.  "Yes,"  she  said, 
"  isn't  it  fortunate  that  Mr.  Kenby  should  be  going  to 
Holland,  too  !  I  should  have  been  so  unhappy  about 
them  if  Mrs.  Adding  had  been  obliged  to  make  that 
long  journey  with  poor  little  Rose  alone." 

"  Yes,  yes ;  very  fortunate,  certainly,"  said  the  gen 
eral  colorlessly. 

Her  husband  gave  her  a  glance  of  intelligent  appre 
ciation;  but  Kenby  was  too  simply,  too  densely  con 
tent  with  the  situation  to  know  the  value  of  what  she 
had  done.  She  thought  he  must  certainly  explain,  as 
he  walked  back  with  her  to  the  Swan,  whether  he 
had  misrepresented  her  to  Mrs.  Adding,  or  Mrs.  Add 
ing  had  misunderstood  him.  Somewhere  there  had 
been  an  error,  or  a  duplicity  which  it  was  now  useless 
to  punish ;  and  Kenby  was  so  apparently  unconscious 
of  it  that  she  had  not  the  heart  to  be  cross  with  him. 
She  heard  Miss  Triscoe  behind  her  with  March  laugh- 


432  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

ing  in  the  gayety  which  the  escape  from  her  father 
seemed  to  inspire  in  her.  She  was  promising  March 
to  go  with  him  in  the  morning  to  see  the  Emperor 
and  Empress  of  Germany  arrive  at  the  station,  and  he 
was  warning  her  that  if  she  laughed  there,  like  that, 
she  would  subject  him  to  fine  and  imprisonment.  She 
pretended  that  she  would  like  to  see  him  led  off  be 
tween  two  gendarmes,  but  consented  to  be  a  little 
careful  when  he  asked  her  how  she  expected  to  get 
back  to  her  hotel  without  him,  if  such  a  thing  hap 
pened. 


or  THF 

(f    UNIVERSITY 

ror 


LVIII. 

AFTER  all,  Miss  Triscoe  did  not  go  with  March  ;  she 
preferred  to  sleep.  The  imperial  party  was  to  arrive 
at  half  past  seven,  but  at  six  the  crowd  was  already 
dense  before  the  station,  and  all  along  the  street  lead 
ing  to  the  Residenz.  It  was  a  brilliant  day,  with  the 
promise  of  sunshine,  through  which  a  chilly  wind 
blew,  for  the  manoeuvres.  The  colors  of  all  the  Ger 
man  states  flapped  in  this  breeze  from  the  poles 
wreathed  with  evergreen  which  encircled  the  square ; 
the  workmen  putting  the  last  touches  on  the  bronzed 
allegory  hurried  madly  to  be  done,  and  they  had 
scarcely  finished  their  labors  when  two  troops  of 
dragoons  rode  into  the  place  and  formed  before  the 
station,  and  waited  as  motionlessly  as  their  horses 
would  allow. 

These  animals  were  not  so  conscious  as  lions  at  the 
approach  of  princes;  they  tossed  and  stamped  impa 
tiently  in  the  long  interval  before  the  Regent  and  his 
daughter-in-law  came  to  welcome  their  guests.  All 
the  human  beings,  both  those  who  were  in  charge  and 
those  who  were  under  charge,  were  in  a  quiver  of 
anxiety  to  play  their  parts  well,  as  if  there  were  some 


434          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

heavy  penalty  for  failure  in  the  least  point.  The  po 
licemen  keeping  the  people  in  line  behind  the  ropes 
which  restrained  them  trembled  with  eagerness;  the 
faces  of  some  of  the  troopers  twitched.  An  involun 
tary  sigh  went  up  from  the  crowd  as  the  Regent's 
carriage  appeared,  heralded  by  outriders,  and  followed 
by  other  plain  carriages  of  Bavarian  blue  with  liveries 
of  blue  and  silver.  Then  the  whistle  of  the  Kaiser's 
train  sounded;  a  trumpeter  advanced  and  began  to 
blow  his  trumpet  as  they  do  in  the  theatre ;  and  exactly 
at  the  appointed  moment  the  Emperor  and  Empress 
came  out  of  the  station  through  the  brilliant  human 
alley  leading  from  it,  mounted  their  carriages,  with  the 
stage  trumpeter  always  blowing,  and  whirled  swiftly 
round  half  the  square  and  flashed  into  the  corner  tow 
ard  the  Residenz  out  of  sight.  The  same  hollow 
groans  of  Ho-o-o-ch  greeted  and  followed  them  from 
the  spectators  as  had  welcomed  the  Regent  when  he 
first  arrived  among  his  fellow-townsmen,  with  the 
same  effect  of  being  the  conventional  cries  of  a  stage 
mob  behind  the  scenes. 

The  Emperor  was  like  most  of  his  innumerable 
pictures,  with  a  swarthy  face  from  which  his  blue  eyes 
glanced  pleasantly ;  he  looked  good-humored  if  not 
good-natured ;  the  Empress  smiled  amiably  beneath 
her  deeply  fringed  white  parasol,  and  they  both  bowed 
right  and  left  in  acknowledgment  of  those  hollow 
groans ;  but  again  it  seemed  to  March  that  sovereignty 
gave  the  popular  curiosity,  not  to  call  it  devotion,  a 
scantier  return  than  it  merited.  He  had  perhaps  been 
insensibly  working  toward  some  such  perception  as 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  435 

now  came  to  him  that  the  great  difference  between 
Europe  and  Mrnerica  was  that  in  Europe  life  is  his 
trionic  and  dramatized,  and  that  in  America,  except 
when  it  is  trying  to  be  European,  it  is  direct  and  sin 
cere.  He  wondered  whether  the  innate  conviction  of 
equality,  the  deep,  underlying  sense  of  a  common 
humanity  transcending  all  social  and  civic  pretences, 
was  what  gave  their  theatrical  effect  to  the  shows  of 
deference  from  low  to  high,  and  of  condescension 
from  high  to  low.  If  in  such  encounters  of  sovereigns 
and  subjects,  the  prince  did  not  play  his  part  so  well 
as  the  people,  it  might  be  that  he  had  a  harder  part 
to  play,  and  that  to  support  his  dignity  at  all,  to  keep 
from  being  found  out  the  sham  that  he  essentially 
was,  he  had  to  hurry  across  the  stage  amidst  the  dis 
tracting  thunders  of  the  orchestra.  If  the  star  staid 
to  be  scrutinized  by  the  soldiers,  citizens,  and  so 
forth,  even  the  poor  supernumeraries  and  scene-shifters 
might  see  that  he  was  a  tallow  candle  like  themselves. 
In  the  censorious  mood  induced  by  the  reflection 
that  he  had  waited  an  hour  and  a  half  for  half  a 
minute's  glimpse  of  the  imperial  party,  March  now 
decided  not  to  go  to  the  manoeuvres,  where  he  might 
be  subjected  to  still  greater  humiliation  and  disap 
pointment.  He  had  certainly  come  to  Wiirzburg  for 
the  manoeuvres,  but  Wiirzburg  had  been  richly  repay 
ing  in  itself ;  and  why  should  he  stifle  half  an  hour  in 
an  overcrowded  train,  and  struggle  for  three  miles  on 
foot  against  that  harsh  wind,  to  see  a  multitude  of 
men  give  proofs  of  their  fitness  to  do  manifold  mur 
der  ?  He  was,  in  fact,  not  the  least  curious  for  the 


436  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

sight,  and  the  only  thing  that  really  troubled  him  was 
the  question  of  how  he  should  justify  his  recreance 
to  his  wife.  This  did  alloy  the  pleasure  with  which 
he  began,  after  an  excellent  breakfast  at  a  neighboring 
cafe,  to  stroll  about  the  streets,  though  he  had  them 
almost  to  himself,  so  many  citizens  had  followed  the 
soldiers  to  the  manosuvres. 

It  was  not  till  the  soldiers  began  returning  from 
the  manoauvres,  dusty-footed,  and  in  white  canvas 
overalls  drawn  over  their  trousers  to  save  them,  that 
he  went  back  to  Mrs.  March  and  Miss  Triscoe  at  the 
Swan.  He  had  given  them  time  enough  to  imagine 
him  at  the  review,  and  to  wonder  whether  he  had  seen 
General  Triscoe  and  the  Stollers  there,  and  they  met 
him  with  such  confident  inquiries  that  he  would  not 
undeceive  them  at  once.  He  let  them  divine  from 
his  inventive  answers  that  he  had  not  gone  to  the 
manoauvres,  which  put  them  in  the  best  humor  with 
themselves,  and  the  girl  said  it  was  so  cold  and  rough 
that  she  wished  her  father  had  not  gone,  either.  The 
general  appeared  just  before  dinner  and  frankly 
avowed  the  same  wish.  He  was  rasping  and  wheez 
ing  from  the  dust  which  filled  his  lungs;  he  looked 
blown  and  red,  and  he  was  too  angry  with  the  com 
pany  he  had  been  in  to  have  any  comments  on  the 
manoeuvres.  He  referred  to  the  military  chiefly  in 
relation  to  the  Miss  Stollers'  ineffectual  flirtations, 
which  he  declared  had  been  outrageous.  Their  father 
had  apparently  no  control  over  them  whatever,  or  else 
was  too  ignorant  to  know  that  they  were  misbehaving. 
They  were  without  respect  or  reverence  for  any  one  ; 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  437 

they  had  talked  to  General  Triscoe  as  if  he  were  a 
boy  of  their  own  age,  or  a  dotard  whom  nobody  need 
mind ;  they  had  not  only  kept  up  their  foolish  babble 
before  him,  they  had  laughed  and  giggled,  they  had 
broken  into  snatches  of  American  song,  they  had  all 
but  whistled  and  danced.  They  made  loud  comments 
in  Illinois  English  on  the  cuteness  of  the  officers 
whom  they  admired,  and  they  had  at  one  time  actu 
ally  got  out  their  handkerchiefs.  He  supposed  they 
meant  to  wave  them  at  the  officers,  but  at  the  look  he 
gave  them  they  merely  put  their  hats  together  and 
snickered  in  derision  of  him.  They  were  American 
girls  of  the  worst  type ;  they  conformed  to  no  stand 
ard  of  behavior ;  their  conduct  was  personal.  They 
ought  to  be  taken  home. 

Mrs.  March  said  she  saw  what  he  meant,  and  she 
agreed  with  him  that  they  were  altogether  unformed, 
and  were  the  effect  of  their  own  ignorant  caprices. 
Probably,  however,  it  was  too  late  to  amend  them  by 
taking  them  away. 

"  It  would  hide  them,  at  any  rate,"  he  answered. 
"  They  would  sink  back  into  the  great  mass  of  our 
vulgarity,  and  not  be  noticed.  We  behave  like  a 
parcel  of  peasants  with  our  women.  We  think  that 
if  no  harm  is  meant  or  thought,  we  may  risk  any  sort 
of  appearance,  and  we  do  things  that  are  scandalously 
improper  simply  because  they  are  innocent.  That 
may  be  all  very  well  at  home,  but  people  who  prefer 
that  sort  of  thing  had  better  stay  there,  where  our 
peasant  manners  won't  make  them  conspicuous." 

As  their  train  ran  northward  out  of  Wiirzburg  that 


438  THEIR    SILVER    AVEDDING    JOURNEY. 

afternoon,  Mrs.  March  recurred  to  the  general's  clos 
ing  words.  "  That  was  a  slap  at  Mrs.  Adding  for  let 
ting  Kenby  go  off  with  her." 

She  took  up  the  history  of  the  past  twenty-four 
hours,  from  the  time  March  had  left  her  with  Miss 
Triscoe  when  he  went  with  her  father  and  the  Add- 
ings  and  Kenby  to  see  that  church.  She  had  had  no 
chance  to  bring  up  these  arrears  until  now,  and  she 
atoned  to  herself  for  the  delay  by  making  the  history 
very  full,  and  going  back  and  adding  touches  at  any 
point  where  she  thought  she  had  scanted  it.  After 
all,  it  consisted  mainly  of  fragmentary  intimations 
from  Miss  Triscoe  and  of  half-uttered  questions  which 
her  own  art  now  built  into  a  coherent  statement. 

March  could  not  find  that  the  general  had  much  re 
sented  Burnamy's  clandestine  visit  to  Carlsbad  when 
his  daughter  told  him  of  it,  or  that  he  had  done  more 
than  make  her  promise  that  she  would  not  keep  up 
the  acquaintance  upon  any  terms  unknown  to  him. 

"  Probably,"  Mrs.  March  said,  "  as  long  as  he  had 
any  hopes  of  Mrs.  Adding,  he  was  a  little  too  self- 
conscious  to  be  very  up  and  down  about  Burnamy." 

"  Then  you  think  he  was  really  serious  about  her  ?  " 

"  Now  my  dear  !  He  was  so  serious  that  I  suppose 
he  was  never  so  completely  taken  aback  in  his  life  as 
when  he  met  Kenby  in  Wiirzburg  and  saw  how  she 
received  him.  Of  course,  that  put  an  end  to  the 
fight." 

"  The  fight  ?  " 

«Yes — that  Mrs.  Adding  and  Agatha  were  keeping 
up  to  prevent  his  offering  himself." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  439 

"  Oh !  And  how  do  you  know  that  they  were 
keeping  up  the  fight  together  ? " 

"  How  do  I  ?  Didn't  you  see  yourself  what  friends 
they  were  ?  Did  you  tell  him  what  Stoller  had  said 
about  Burnamy  ? " 

"I  had  no  chance.  I  don't  know  that  I  should 
have  done  it,  anyway.  It  wasn't  my  affair." 

"  Well,  then,  I  think  you  might.  It  would  have 
been  everything  for  that  poor  child ;  it  would  have 
completely  justified  her  in  her  own  eyes." 

"  Perhaps  your  telling  her  will  serve  the  same  pur 
pose." 

"  Yes,  I  did  tell  her,  and  I  am  glad  of  it.  She  had 
a  right  to  know  it." 

"  Did  she  think  Stoller's  willingness  to  overlook 
Burnamy's  performance  had  anything  to  do  with  its 
moral  quality?" 

Mrs.  March  was  daunted  for  the  moment,  but  she 
said,  "  I  told  her  you  thought  that  if  a  person  owned 
to  a  fault  they  disowned  it,  and  put  it  away  from 
them  just  as  if  it  had  never  been  committed ;  and  that 
if  a  person  had  taken  their  punishment  for  a  wrong 
they  had  done,  they  had  expiated  it  so  far  as  anybody 
else  was  concerned.  And  hasn't  poor  Burnamy  done 
both?" 

As  a  moralist  March  was  flattered  to  be  hoist  with 
his  own  petard,  but  as  a  husband  he  was  not  going  to 
come  down  at  once.  "  I  thought  probably  you  had 
told  her  that.  You  had  it  pat  from  having  just  been 
over  it  with  me.  When  has  she  heard  from  him  ?  " 

"  Why,  that's  the  strangest  thing  about  it.      She 


440  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

hasn't  heard  at  all.  She  doesn't  know  where  he  is. 
She  thought  we  must  know.  She  was  terribly  broken 
up." 

"  How  did  she  show  it  ?  " 

"  She  didn't  show  it.  Either  you  want  to  tease,  or 
you've  forgotten  how  such  things  are  with  young 
people — or  at  least  girls." 

• "  Yes,  it's  all  a  long  time  ago  with  me,  and  I  never 
was  a  girl.  Besides,  the  frank  and  direct  behavior  of 
Kenby  and  Mrs.  Adding  has  been  very  obliterating  to 
my  early  impressions  of  love-making." 

"  It  certainly  hasn't  been  ideal,"  said  Mrs.  March 
with  a  sigh. 

"  Why  hasn't  it  been  ideal  ? "  he  asked.  "  Kenby 
is  tremendously  in  love  with  her ;  and  I  believe  she's 
had  a  fancy  for  him  from  the  beginning.  If  it  hadn't 
been  for  Rose  she  would  have  accepted  him  at  once ; 
and  now  he's  essential  to  them  both  in  their  helpless 
ness.  As  for  Papa  Triscoe  and  his  Europeanized 
scruples,  if  they  have  any  reality  at  all  they're  the 
residuum  of  his  personal  resentment,  and  Kenby  and 
Mrs.  Adding  have  nothing  to  do  with  their  unreality. 
His  being  in  love  with  her  is  no  reason  why  he 
shouldn't  be  helpful  to  her  when  she  needs  him,  and 
every  reason  why  he  should.  I  call  it  a  poem,  such  as 
very  few  people  have  the  luck  to  live  out  together." 

Mrs.  March  listened  with  mounting  fervor,  and 
when  he  stopped,  she  cried  out,  "  Well,  my  dear,  I  do 
believe  you  are  right !  It  is  ideal,  as  you  say ;  it's  a 
perfect  poem.  And  I  shall  always  say— 

She  stopped  at  the  mocking  light  which  she  caught 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  441 

in  his  look,  and  perceived  that  he  had  been  amusing 
himself  with  her  perennial  enthusiasm  for  all  sorts  of 
love-affairs.  But  she  averred  that  she  did  not  care ; 
what  he  had  said  was  true,  and  she  should  always 
hold  him  to  it. 

They  were  again  in  the  wedding-journey  sentiment 
in  which  they  had  left  Carlsbad,  when  they  found 
themselves  alone  together  after  their  escape  from  the 
pressure  of  others'  interests.  The  tide  of  travel  was 
towards  Frankfort,  where  the  grand  parade  was  to 
take  place  some  days  later.  They  were  going  to 
Weimar,  which  was  so  few  hours  out  of  their  way 
that  they  simply  must  not  miss  it;  and  all  the  way 
to  the  old  literary  capital  they  were  alone  in  their 
compartment,  with  not  even  a  stranger,  much  less  a 
friend  to  molest  them.  The  flying  landscape  without 
was  of  their  own  early  autumnal  mood,  and  when  the 
vineyards  of  Wiirzburg  ceased  to  purple  it,  the  heavy 
after-math  of  hay  and  clover,  which  men,  women,  and 
children  were  loading  on  heavy  wains,  and  driving 
from  the  meadows  everywhere,  offered  a  pastoral  and 
pleasing  change.  It  was  always  the  German  land 
scape  ;  sometimes  flat  and  fertile,  sometimes  hilly  and 
poor;  often  clothed  with  dense  woods,  but  always 
charming,  with  castled  tops  in  ruin  or  repair,  and  with 
levels  where  Gothic  villages  drowsed  within  their 
walls,  and  dreamed  of  the  mediaeval  past,  silent,  with 
out  apparent  life,  except  for  some  little  goose-girl 
driving  her  flock  before  her  as  she  sallied  out  into  the 
nineteenth  century  in  search  of  fresh  pasturage. 

As  their  train  mounted  among  the  Thuringian  up- 


442  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

lands  they  were  aware  of  a  finer,  cooler  air  through 
their  open  window.  The  torrents  foamed  white  out 
of  the  black  forests  of  fir  and  pine,  and  brawled  along 
the  valleys,  where  the  hamlets  roused  themselves  in 
momentary  curiosity  as  the  train  roared  into  them 
from  the  many  tunnels.  The  afternoon  sunshine  had 
the  glister  of  mountain  sunshine  everywhere,  and  the 
travellers  had  a  pleasant  bewilderment  in  which  their 
memories  of  Switzerland  and  the  White  Mountains 
mixed  with  long-dormant  emotions  from  Adirondack 
sojourns.  They  chose  this  place  and  that  in  the  lovely 
region  where  they  lamented  that  they  had  not  come 
at  once  for  the  after-cure,  and  they  appointed  enough 
returns  to  it  in  future  years  to  consume  all  the  sum 
mers  they  had  left  to  live. 


LIX. 

IT  was  falling  night  when  they  reached  Weimar, 
where  they  found  at  the  station  a  provision  of  omni 
buses  far  beyond  the  hotel  accommodations.  They 
drove  first  to  the  Crown-Prince,  which  was  in  a  prom 
ising  state  of  reparation,  but  which  for  the  present 
could  only  welcome  them  to  an  apartment  where  a 
canvas  curtain  cut  them  off  from  a  freshly  plastered 
wall.  The  landlord  deplored  the  fact,  and  sent  hospit 
ably  out  to  try  and  place  them  at  the  Elephant.  But 
the  Elephant  was  full,  and  the  Russian  Court  was  full 
too.  Then  the  landlord  of  the  Crown-Prince  be 
thought  himself  of  a  new  hotel,  of  the  second  class, 
indeed,  but  very  nice,  where  they  might  get  rooms, 
and  after  the  delay  of  an  hour,  they  got  a  carriage 
and  drove  away  from  the  Crown-Prince,  where  the 
landlord  continued  to  the  last  as  benevolent  as  if  they 
had  been  a  profit  instead  of  a  loss  to  him. 

The  streets  of  the  town  at  nine  o'clock  were  empty 
and  quiet,  and  they  instantly  felt  the  academic  quality 
of  the  place.  Through  the  pale  night  they  could  see 
that  the  architecture  was  of  the  classic  sentiment 


444  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

which  they  were  destined  to  feel  more  and  more ;  at 
one  point  they  caught  a  fleeting  glimpse  of  two  figures 
with  clasped  hands  and  half  embraced,  which  they 
knew  for  the  statues  of  Goethe  and  Schiller ;  and  when 
they  mounted  to  their  rooms  at  the  Grand-Duke  of 
Saxe- Weimar,  they  passed  under  a  fresco  representing 
Goethe  and  four  other  world-famous  poets,  Shakspere, 
Milton,  Tasso,  and  Schiller.  The  poets  all  looked  like 
Germans,  as  was  just,  and  Goethe  was  naturally  chief 
among  them;  he  marshalled  the  immortals  on  their 
way,  and  Schiller  brought  up  the  rear  and  kept  them 
from  going  astray  in  an  Elysium  where  they  did  not 
speak  the  language.  For  the  rest,  the  hotel  was 
brand-new,  of  a  quite  American  freshness,  and  was 
pervaded  by  a  sweet  smell  as  of  straw  matting,  and 
provided  with  steam-radiators.  In  the  sense  of  its 
homelikeness  the  Marches  boasted  that  they  were 
never  going  away  from  it.  ^04 

In  the  morning  they  discovered  that  their  windows 
looked  out  on  the  grand-ducal  museum,  with  a  gar 
dened  space  before  and  below  its  classicistic  bulk, 
where,  in  a  whim  of  the  weather,  the  gay  flowers  were 
full  of  sun.  In  a  pleasant  illusion  of  taking  it  un 
awares,  March  strolled  up  through  the  town;  but 
Weimar  was  as  much  awake  at  that  hour  as  at  any  qf 
the  twenty-four,  and  the  tranquillity  of  its  streets, 
where  he  encountered  a  few  passers  several  blocks 
apart,  was  their  habitual  mood.  He  came  promptly 
upon  two  objects  which  he  would  willingly  have 
shunned :  a  denkmal  of  the  Franco-German  war,  not 
so  furiously  bad  as  most  German  monuments,  but 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  44:5 

antipathetic  and  uninteresting,  as  all  patriotic  mon 
uments  are;  and  a  woman-and-dog  team.  In  the 
shock  from  this  he  was  sensible  that  he  had  not  seen 
any  woman-and-dog  teams  for  some  time,  and  he 
wondered  by  what  civic  or  ethnic  influences  their  dis 
tribution  was  so  controlled  that  they  should  have 
abounded  in  Hamburg,  Leipsic,  and  Carlsbad,  and 
wholly  ceased  in  Nuremberg,  Ansbach,  and  Wiirzburg, 
to  reappear  again  in  Weimar,  though  they  seemed  as 
characteristic  of  all  Germany  as  the  ugly  denkmals  to 
her  victories  over  France. 

The  Goethe  and  Schiller  monument  which  he  had 
glimpsed  the  night  before  was  characteristic  too,  but 
less  offensively  so.  German  statues  at  the  best  are 
conscious;  and  the  poet-pair,  as  the  inscription  calls 
them,  have  the  air  of  showily  confronting  posterity 
with  their  clasped  hands,  and  of  being  only  partially 
rapt  from  the  spectators.  But  they  were  more  un 
conscious  than  any  other  German  statues  that  March 
had  seen,  and  he  quelled  a  desire  to  ask  Goethe,  as  he 
stood  with  his  hand  on  Schiller's  shoulder,  and  looked 
serenely  into  space  far  above  one  of  the  typical  equi 
pages  of  his  country,  what  he  thought  of  that  sort  of 
thing.  But  upon  reflection  he  did  not  know  why 
Qoethe  should  be  held  personally  responsible  for  the 
existence  of  the  woman-and-dog  team.  He  felt  that 
he  might  more  reasonably  attribute  to  his  taste  the 
prevalence  of  classic  profiles  which  he  began  to  note 
in  the  Weimar  populace.  This  could  be  a  sympa 
thetic  effect  of  that  passion  for  the  antique  which  the 
poet  brought  back  with  him  from  his  sojourn  in  Italy  ; 


446  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

though  many  of  the  people,  especially  the  children, 
were  bow-legged.  Perhaps  the  antique  had  begun  in 
their  faces,  and  had  not  yet  got  down  to  their  legs ; 
in  any  case  they  were  charming  children,  and  as  a 
test  of  their  culture,  he  had  a  mind  to  ask  a  little  girl 
if  she  could  tell  him  where  the  statue  of  Herder  was, 
which  he  thought  he  might  as  well  take  in  on  his 
ramble,  and  so  be  done  with  as  many  statues  as  he 
could.  She  answered  with  a  pretty  regret  in  her  ten 
der  voice,  "  That  I  truly  cannot,"  and  he  was  more 
satisfied  than  if  she  could,  for  he  thought  it  better  to 
be  a  child  and  honest,  than  to  know  where  any  Ger 
man  statue  was. 

He  easily  found  it  for  himself  in  the  place  which  is 
called  the  Herder  Platz  after  it.  He  went  into  the 
Peter  and  Paul  Church  there,  where  Herder  used  to 
preach  sermons,  sometimes  not  at  all  liked  by  the 
nobility  and  gentry  for  their  revolutionary  tendency  ; 
the  sovereign  was  shielded  from  the  worst  effects  of 
his  doctrine  by  worshipping  apart  from  other  sinners 
in  a  glazed  gallery.  Herder  is  buried  in  the  church, 
and  when  you  ask  where,  the  sacristan  lifts  a  wooden 
trap-door  in  the  pavement,  and  you  think  you  are 
going  down  into  the  crypt,  but  you  are  only  to  see 
Herder's  monumental  stone,  which  is  kept  covered  so 
to  save  it  from  passing  feet.  Here  also  is  the  great 
est  picture  of  that  great  soul  Luke  Kranach,  who  had 
sincerity  enough  in  his  painting  to  atone  for  all  the 
swelling  German  sculptures  in  the  world.  It  is  a  cru 
cifixion,  and  the  cross  is  of  a  white  birch  log,  such  as 
might  have  been  cut  out  of  the  Weimar  woods,  shaved 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  447 

smooth  on  the  sides,  with  the  bark  showing  at  the 
edges.  Kranach  has  put  himself  among  the  specta 
tors,  and  a  stream  of  blood  from  the  side  of  the  Sav 
ior  falls  in  baptism  upon  the  painter's  head.  He  is  in 
the  company  of  John  the  Baptist  and  Martin  Luther ; 
Luther  stands  with  his  Bible  open,  and  his  linger  on 
the  line,  "  The  blood  of  Jesus  cleanseth  us." 

Partly  because  he  felt  guilty  at  doing  all  these 
things  without  his  wife,  and  partly  because  he  was 
now  very  hungry,  March  turned  from  them  and  got 
back  to  his  hotel,  where  she  was  looking  out  for  him 
from  their  open  window.  She  had  the  air  of  being 
long  domesticated  there,  as  she  laughed  down  at  see 
ing  him  come ;  and  the  continued  brilliancy  of  the 
weather  added  to  the  illusion  of  home. 

It  was  like  a  day  of  late  spring  in  Italy  or  America ; 
the  sun  in  that  gardened  hollow  before  the  museum 
was  already  hot  enough  to  make  him  glad  of  the 
shelter  of  the  hotel.  The  summer  seemed  to  have 
come  back  to  oblige  them,  and  when  they  learned 
that  they  were  to  see  Weimar  in  a  festive  mood  be 
cause  this  was  Sedan  Day,  their  curiosity,  if  not  their 
sympathy,  accepted  the  chance  gratefully.  But  they 
were  almost  moved  to  wish  that  the  war  had  gone 
otherwise  when  they  learned  that  all  the  public  carri 
ages  were  engaged,  and  they  must  have  one  from  a 
stable  if  they  wished  to  drive  after  breakfast.  Still 
it  was  offered  them  for  such  a  modest  number  of 
marks,  and  their  driver  proved  so  friendly  and  con 
versable,  that  they  assented  to  the  course  of  history, 
and  were  more  and  more  reconciled  as  they  bowled 


448  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

along  through  the  grand-ducal  park  beside  the  waters 
of  the  classic  Ilm. 

The  waters  of  the  classic  Ilm  are  sluggish  and  slimy 
in  places,  and  in  places  clear  and  brooklike,  but  alwavs 
a  dull  dark  green  in  color.  They  flow  in  the  shadow 
of  pensive  trees,  and  by  the  brinks  of  sunny  meadows, 
where  the  after-math  wanders  in  heavy  windrows,  and 
the  children  sport  joyously  over  the  smooth-mown 
surfaces  in  all  the  freedom  that  there  is  in  Germany. 
At  last,  after  immemorial  appropriation  the  owners  of 
the  earth  are  everywhere  expropriated,  and  the  people 
come  into  the  pleasure  if  not  the  profit  of  it.  At 
last,  the  prince,  the  knight,  the  noble  finds,  as  in  his 
turn  the  plutocrat  will  find,  that  his  property  is  not 
for  him,  but  for  all ;  and  that  the  nation  is  to  enjoy 
what  he  takes  from  it  and  vainly  thinks  to  keep  from 
it.  Parks,  pleasaunces,  gardens,  set  apart  for  kings, 
are  the  play-grounds  of  the  landless  poor  in  the  Old 
World,  and  perhaps  yield  the  sweetest  joy  of  privi 
lege  to  some  state-sick  ruler,  some  world-weary  prin 
cess,  some  lonely  child  born  to  the  solitude  of  sover 
eignty,  as  they  each  look  down  from  their  palace 
windows  upon  the  leisure  of  overwork  taking  its  little 
holiday  amidst  beauty  vainly  created  for  the  perpetual 
festival  of  their  empty  lives. 

March  smiled  to  think  that  in  this  very  Weimar, 
where  sovereignty  had  graced  and  ennobled  itself  as 
nowhere  else  in  the  world  by  the  companionship  of 
letters  and  the  arts,  they  still  were  not  hurrying  first 
to  see  the  palace  of  a  prince,  but  were  involuntarily 
making  it  second  to  the  cottage  of  a  poet.  But  in 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  449 

fact  it  is  Goethe  who  is  forever  the  prince  in  Weimar. 
His  greatness  blots  out  its  history,  his  name  fills 
the  city ;  the  thought  of  him  is  its  chief est  invitation 
and  largest  hospitality.  The  travellers  remembered, 
above  all  other  facts  of  the  grand-ducal  park,  that  it 
was  there  he  first  met  Christiane  Vulpius,  beautiful 
and  young,  when  he  too  was  beautiful  and  young,  and 
took  her  home  to  be  his  love,  to  the  just  and  lasting 
displeasure  of  Frau  von  Stein,  who  was  even  less  rec 
onciled  when,  after  eighteen  years  of  due  reflection,  the 
love  of  Goethe  and  Christiane  became  their  marriage. 
They  wondered  just  where  it  was  he  saw  the  young 
girl  coming  to  meet  him  as  the  Grand -Duke's  minis 
ter  with  an  office-seeking  petition  from  her  brother, 
Goethe's  brother  author,  long  famed  and  long  forgot 
ten  for  his  romantic  tale  of  "  Rinaldo  Rinaldini." 
They  had  indeed  no  great  mind,  in  their  American 
respectability,  for  that  rather  matter-of-fact  and  delib 
erate  liaison,  and  little  as  their  sympathy  was  for  the 
passionless  intellectual  intrigue  with  the  Frau  von 
Stein,  it  cast  no  halo  of  sentiment  about  the  Goethe 
cottage  to  suppose  that  there  his  love-life  with  Chris 
tiane  began.  Mrs.  March  even  resented  the  fact,  and 
when  she  learned  later  that  it  was  not  the  fact  at  all, 
she  removed  it  from  her  associations  with  the  pretty 
place  almost  indignantly. 

In  spite  of  our  facile  and  multiple  divorces  we 
Americans  are  worshippers  of  marriage,  and  if  a  great 
poet,  the  minister  of  a  prince,  is  going  to  marry  a 
poor  girl,  we  think  he  had  better  not  wait  till  their 
son  is  almost  of  age.  Mrs.  March  would  not  accept  as 
Co 


450  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

extenuating  circumstances  the  Grand-Duke's  godfath- 
erhood,  or  Goethe's  open  constancy  to  Christiane,  or 
the  tardy  consecration  of  their  union  after  the  French 
sack  of  Weimar,  when  the  girl's  devotion  had  saved 
him  from  the  rudeness  of  the  marauding  soldiers.  For 
her  New  England  soul  there  were  no  degrees  in  such 
guilt,  and  perhaps  there  are  really  not  so  many  as 
people  have  tried  to  think,  in  their  deference  to  Goe 
the's  greatness.  But  certainly  the  affair  was  not  so 
simple  for  a  grand-ducal  minister  of  world-wide  re 
nown,  and  he  might  well  have  felt  its  difficulties,  for 
he  could  not  have  been  proof  against  the  censorious 
public  opinion  of  Weimar,  or  the  yet  more  censorious 
private  opinion  of  Frau  von  Stein. 

On  that  lovely  Italo- American  morning  no  ghost  of 
these  old  dead  embarrassments  lingered  within  or 
without  the  Goethe  garden-house.  The  trees  which 
the  poet  himself  planted  flung  a  sun-shot  shadow  upon 
it,  and  about  its  feet  basked  a  garden  of  simple  flow 
ers,  from  which  the  sweet  lame  girl  who  limped 
through  the  rooms  and  showed  them,  gathered  a  part 
ing  nosegay  for  her  visitors.  The  few  small  living- 
rooms  were  above  the  ground-floor,  with  kitchen  and 
offices  below  in  the  Italian  fashion ;  in  one  of  the  little 
chambers  was  the  camp-bed  which  Goethe  carried 
with  him  on  his  journeys  through  Italy ;  and  in  the 
larger  room  at  the  front  stood  the  desk  where  he 
wrote,  with  the  chair  before  it  from  which  he  might 
just  have  risen. 

All  was  much  more  livingly  conscious  of  the  great 
man  gone  than  the  proud  little  palace  in  the  town, 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  451 

which  so  abounds  with  relics  and  memorials  of  him. 
His  library,  histstudy,  his  study  table,  with  everything 
on  it  just  as  he  left  it  when 

"  Cadde  la  stanca  man." 

are  there,  and  there  is  the  death-chair  facing  the  win 
dow,  from  which  he  gasped  for  "  more  light "  at  last. 
The  handsome,  well-arranged  rooms  are  full  of  souve 
nirs  of  his  travel,  and  of  that  passion  for  Italy  which 
he  did  so  much  to  impart  to  all  German  hearts,  and 
whose  modern  waning  leaves  its  records  here  of  an 
interest  pathetically,  almost  amusingly,  faded.  They 
intimate  the  classic  temper  to  which  his  mind  tended 
more  and  more,  and  amidst  the  multitude  of  sculp 
tures,  pictures,  prints,  drawings,  gems,  medals,  auto 
graphs,  there  is  the  sense  of  the  many-mindedness, 
the  universal  taste,  for  which  he  found  room  in  little 
Weimar,  but  not  in  his  contemporaneous  Germany. 
But  it  is  all  less  keenly  personal,  less  intimate  than 
the  simple  garden-house,  or  else,  with  the  great  troop 
of  people  going  through  it,  and  the  custodians  lectur 
ing  in  various  voices  and  languages  to  the  attendant 
groups,  the  Marches  had  it  less  to  themselves,  and  so 
imagined  him  less  in  it. 


LX. 

ALL  palaces  have  a  character  of  tiresome  unlivable- 
ness  which  is  common  to  them  everywhere,  and  very 
probably  if  one  could  meet  their  proprietors  in  them 
one  would  as  little  remember  them  apart  afterwards 
as  the  palaces  themselves.     It  will  not  do  to  lift  either 
houses  or  men  far  out  of  the  average ;  they  become 
spectacles,  ceremonies;  they  cease  to  have  charm,  to 
have  character,  which    belong  to  the  levels  of    life, 
where  alone  there  are  ease  and  comfort,  and  human 
nature  may  be  itself,  with  all  the  little  delightful  dif 
ferences  repressed  in  those  who  represent  and  typify. 
As  they  followed  the  custodian  through  the  grand- 
ducal  Residenz  at  Weimar,  March  felt  everywhere  the 
strong  wish  of  the  prince  who  was  Goethe's  friend  to 
ally  himself  with  literature,  and  to  be  human  at  least 
in  the  humanities.     He  came  honestly  by  his  passion 
for  poets ;  his  mother  had  known  it  in  her  time,  and 
\7eimar  was  the  home  of  Wieland  and  of  Herder  be 
fore  the  young  Grand-Duke  came  back  from  his  travels 
bringing  Goethe  with  him,  and  afterwards  attracting 
Schilkr.     The  story  of  that  great  epoch  is  all  there 
in  the  Hesidenz,  told  as  articulately  as  a  palace  can. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  453 

There  are  certain  Poets'  Rooms,  frescoed  with  illus 
trations  of  Goethe,  Schiller,  and  Wieland ;  there  is 
the  room  where  Goethe  and  the  Grand-Duke  used  to 
play  chess  together ;  there  is  the  conservatory  opening 
from  it  where  they  liked  to  sit  and  chat;  everywhere 
in  the  pictures  and  sculptures,  the  engraving  and  in 
taglios,  are  the  witnesses  of  the  tastes  they  shared, 
the  love  they  both  had  for  Italy,  and  for  beautiful 
Italian  things.  The  prince  was  not  so  great  a  prince 
but  that  he  could  very  nearly  be  a  man ;  the  court  was 
perhaps  the  most  human  court  that  ever  was ;  the 
Grand-Duke  and  the  grand  poet  were  first  boon  com 
panions,  and  then  monarch  and  minister  working  to 
gether  fcr  the  good  of  the  country ;  they  were  always 
friends,  and  yet,  as  the  American  saw  in  the  light  of 
the  New  World,  which  he  carried  with  him,  how  far 
from  friends  !  At  best  it  was  make-believe,  the  make- 
believe  of  superiority  and  inferiority,  the  make-believe 
of  master  and  man,  which  could  only  be  the  more 
painful  and  ghastly  for  the  endeavor  of  two  generous 
spirits  to  reach  and  rescue  each  other  through  the 
asphyxiating  unreality;  but  they  kept  up  the  show 
of  equality  faithfully  to  the  end.  Goethe  was 
born  citizen  of  a  free  republic,  and  his  youth  was 
nurtured  in  the  traditions  of  liberty ;  he  was  one 
of  the  greatest  souls  of  any  time,  and  he  must  have 
known  the  impossibility  of  the  thing  they  pretended ; 
but  he  died  and  made  no  sign,  and  the  poet's  friend 
ship  with  the  prince  has  passed  smoothly  into  his 
tory  as  one  of  the  things  that  might  really  be.  They 
worked  and  played  together ;  they  dined  and  danced, 


454  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

they  picnicked  and  poetized,  each  on  his  own  side  of 
the  impassable  gulf,  with  an  air  of  its  not  being  there 
which  probably  did  not  deceive  their  contemporaries 
so  much  as  posterity. 

A  part  of  the  palace  was  of  course  undergoing  re 
pair  ;  and  in  the  gallery  beyond  the  conservatory  a 
company  of  workmen  were  sitting  at  a  table  where 
they  had  spread  their  luncheon.  They  were  some 
what  subdued  by  the  consciousness  of  their  august 
environment ;  but  the  sight  of  them  was  charming  ; 
they  gave  a  kindly  interest  to  the  place  which  it  had 
wanted  before  ;  and  which  the  Marches  felt  again  in 
another  palace  where  the  custodian  showed  them  the 
little  tin  dishes  and  saucepans  which  the  German 
Empress  Augusta  and  her  sisters  played  with  when 
they  were  children.  The  sight  of  these  was  more 
affecting  even  than  the  withered  wreaths  which  they 
had  left  on  the  death-bed  of  their  mother,  and  which 
are  still  mouldering  there. 

This  was  in  the  Belvedere,  the  country  house  on  the 
height  overlooking  Weimar,  where  the  grand-ducal 
family  spend  the  month  of  May,  and  where  the  stran 
ger  finds  himself  amid  overwhelming  associations  of 
Goethe,  although  the  place  is  so  full  of  relics  and 
memorials  of  the  owners.  It  seemed  in  fact  to  be  a 
storehouse  for  the  wedding-presents  of  the  whole 
connection,  which  were  on  show  in  every  room ;  Mrs. 
March  hardly  knew  whether  they  heightened  the  do 
mestic  effect  or  took  from  it ;  but  they  enabled  her  to 
verify  with  the  custodian's  help  certain  royal  inter 
marriages  which  she  had  been  in  doubt  about  before. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  4:55 

Her  zeal  for  these  made  such  favor  with  him  that  he 
did  not  spare  them  a  portrait  of  all  those  which  March 
hoped  to  escape ;  he  passed  them  over,  scarcely  able 
to  stand,  to  the  gardener,  who  was  to  show  them  the 
open-air  theatre  where  Goethe  used  to  take  part  in 
the  plays. 

The  Natur-Theater  was  of  a  classic  ideal,  realized 
in  the  trained  vines  and  clipped  trees  which  formed 
the  coulisses.  There  was  a  grassy  space  for  the  cho 
rus  and  the  commoner  audience,  and  then  a  few  semi 
circular  gradines  cut  in  the  turf,  one  above  another, 
where  the  more  honored  spectators  sat.  Behind  the 
seats  were  plinths  bearing  the  busts  of  Goethe,  Schil 
ler,  Wieland,  and  Herder.  It  was  all  very  pretty,  and 
if  ever  the  weather  in  Weimar  was  dry  enough  to 
permit  a  performance,  it  must  have  been  charming  to 
see  a  play  in  that  open  day  to  which  the  drama  is 
native,  though  in  the  late  hours  it  now  keeps  in  the 
thick  air  of  modern  theatres  it  has  long  forgotten  the 
fact.  It  would  be  difficult  to  be  Greek  under  a  Ger 
man  sky,  even  when  it  was  not  actually  raining,  but 
March  held  that  with  Goethe's  help  it  might  have 
been  done  at  Weimar,  and  his  wife  and  he  proved 
themselves  such  enthusiasts  for  the  Natur-Theater 
that  the  walnut-faced  old  gardener  who  showed  it 
put  together  a  sheaf  of  the  flowers  that  grew  nearest 
it  and  gave  them  to  Mrs.  March  for  a  souvenir. 

They  went  for  a  cup  of  tea  to  the  cafe  which  looks, 
as  from  another  eyebrow  of  the  hill,  out  over  lovely 
little  Weimar  in  the  plain  below.  In  a  moment  of 
sunshine  the  prospect  was  very  smiling,  but  their 


456  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

spirits  sank  over  their  tea  when  it  came ;  they  were  at 
least  sorry  they  had  not  asked  for  coffee.  Most  of 
the  people  about  them  were  taking  beer,  including  the 
pretty  girls  of  a  young  ladies'  school,  who  were  there 
with  their  books  and  needle- work,  in  the  care  of  one 
of  the  teachers,  apparently  for  the  afternoon. 

Mrs.  March  perceived  that  they  were  not  so  much 
engaged  with  their  books  or  their  needle-work  but 
they  had  eyes  for  other  things,  and  she  followed  the 
glances  of  the  girls  till  they  rested  upon  the  people  at 
a  table  somewhat  obliquely  to  the  left.  These  were 
apparently  a  mother  and  daughter,  and  they  were  list 
ening  to  a  young  man  who  sat  with  his  back  to  Mrs. 
March,  and  leaned  low  over  the  table  talking  to  them. 
They  were  both  smiling  radiantly,  and  as  the  girl 
smiled  she  kept  turning  herself  from  the  waist  up, 
and  slanting  her  face  from  this  side  to  that,  as  if  to 
make  sure  that  every  one  saw  her  smiling. 

Mrs.  March  felt  her  husband's  gaze  following  her 
own,  and  she  had  just  time  to  press  her  finger  firmly 
on  his  arm  and  reduce  his  cry  of  astonishment  to  the 
hoarse  whisper  in  which  he  gasped,  "  Good  gracious ! 
It's  the  pivotal  girl !  " 

At  the  same  moment  the  girl  rose  with  her  mother, 
and  with  the  young  man,  who  had  risen  too,  came  di 
rectly  toward  the  Marches  on  their  way  out  of  the 
place  without  noticing  them,  though  Burnamy  passed 
so  near  that  Mrs.  March  could  almost  have  touched 
him. 

She  had  just  strength  to  say,  "Well,  my  dear! 
That  was  the  cut  direct." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  457 

She  said  this  in  order  to  have  her  husband  reassure 
her.  "  Nonsense  !  He  never  saw  us.  Why  didn't 
you  speak  to  him  ?  " 

"  Speak  to  him  ?  .  I  never  shall  speak  to  him  again. 
No !  This  is  the  last  of  Mr.  Burnamy  for  me.  I 
shouldn't  have  minded  his  not  recognizing  us,  for,  as 
you  say,  I  don't  believe  he  saw  us ;  but  if  he  could  go 
back  to  such  a  girl  as  that,  and  flirt  with  her,  after 
Miss  Triscoe,  that's  all  I  wish  to  know  of  him.  Don't 
you  try  to  look  him  up,  Basil !  I'm  glad — yes,  I'm 
glad — he  doesn't  know  how  Stoller  has  come  to  feel 
about  him;  he  deserves  to  suffer,  and  I  hope  he'll  keep 
on  suffering.  You  were  quite  right,  my  dear — and 
it  shows  how  true  your  instinct  is  in  such  things  (I 
don't  call  it  more  than  instinct) — not  to  tell  him  what 
Stoller  said,  and  I  don't  want  you  ever  should." 

She  had  risen  in  her  excitement,  and  was  making 
off  in  such  haste  that  she  would  hardly  give  him  time 
to  pay  for  their  tea,  as  she  pulled  him  impatiently  to 
their  carriage. 

At  last  he  got  a  chance  to  say,  "I  don't  think  I  can 
quite  promise  that ;  my  mind's  been  veering  round  in 
the  other  direction.  I  think  I  shall  tell  him." 

"  What !  After  you've  seen  him  flirting  with  that 
girl?  Very  well,  then,  you  won't,  my  dear;  that's 
all !  He's  behaving  very  basely  to  Agatha." 

"  What's  his  flirtation  with  all  the  girls  in  the  uni 
verse  to  do  with  my  duty  to  him  ?  He  has  a  right  to 
know  what  Stoller  thinks.  And  as  to  his  behaving 
badly  toward  Miss  Triscoe,  how  has  he  done  it?  So 
far  as  you  know,  there  is  nothing  whatever  between 


458  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

them.  She  either  refused  him  outright,  that  last 
night  in  Carlsbad,  or  else  she  made  impossible  con 
ditions  with  him.  Burnamy  is  simply  consoling  him 
self,  and  I  don't  blame  him." 

"  Consoling  himself  with  a  pivotal  girl ! "  cried 
Mrs.  March. 

"  Yes,  with  a  pivotal  girl.  Her  pivotality  may  be 
a  nervous  idiosyncrasy,  or  it  may  be  the  effect  of  tight 
lacing ;  perhaps  she  has  to  keep  turning  and  twisting 
that  way  to  get  breath.  But  attribute  the  worst 
motive :  say  it  is  to  make  people  look  at  her  !  Well, 
Burnamy  has  a  right  to  look  with  the  rest ;  and  I  am 
not  going  to  renounce  him  because  he  takes  refuge 
with  one  pretty  girl  from  another.  It's  what  men 
have  been  doing  from  the  beginning  of  time." 

"  Oh,  I  dare  say  !  " 

"  Men,"  he  went  on,  "  are  very  delicately  consti 
tuted;  very  peculiarly.  They  have  been  known  to 
seek  the  society  of  girls  in  general,  of  any  girl,  be 
cause  some  girl  has  made  them  happy;  and  when 
some  girl  has  made  them  unhappy,  they  are  still  more 
susceptible.  Burnamy  may  be  merely  amusing  him 
self,  or  he  may  be  consoling  himself;  but  in  either 
case  I  think  the  pivotal  girl  has  as  much  right  to  him 
as  Miss  Triscoe.  She  had  him  first ;  and  I'm  all  for 
her." 


LXI. 

BURNAMY  came  away  from  seeing  the  pivotal  girl 
and  her  mother  off  on  the  train  which  they  were  tak 
ing  that  evening  for  Frankfort  and  Hombourg,  and 
strolled  back  through  the  Weimar  streets  little  at  ease 
with  himself.  While  he  was  with  the  girl  and  near 
her  he  had  felt  the  attraction  by  which  youth  imper 
sonally  draws  youth,  the  charm  which  mere  maid  has 
for  mere  man ;  but  once  beyond  the  range  of  this  he 
felt  sick  at  heart  and  ashamed.  He  was  aware  of 
having  used  her  folly  as  an  anodyne  for  the  pain 
which  was  always  gnawing  at  him,  and  he  had  man 
aged  to  forget  it  in  her  folly,  but  now  it  came  back, 
and  the  sense  that  he  had  been  reckless  of  her  rights 
came  with  it.  He  had  done  his  best  to  make  her 
think  him  in  love  with  her,  by  everything  but  words ; 
he  wondered  how  he  could  be  such  an  ass,  such  a 
wicked  ass,  as  to  try  making  her  promise  to  write  to 
him  from  Frankfort ;  he  wished  never  to  see  her  again, 
and  he  wished  still  less  to  hear  from  her.  It  was 
some  comfort  to  reflect  that  she  had  not  promised, 
but  it  was  not  comfort  enough  to  restore  him  to  such 


460          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

fragmentary  self-respect  as  he  had  been  enjoying 
since  he  parted  with  Agatha  Triscoe  in  Carlsbad  ;  he 
could  not  even  get  back  to  the  resentment  with  which 
he  had  been  staying  himself  somewhat  before  the  piv 
otal  girl  unexpectedly  appeared  with  her  mother  in 
Weimar. 

It  was  Sedan  Day,  but  there  was  apparently  no 
official  observance  of  the  holiday,  perhaps  because  the 
Grand-Duke  was  away  at  the  manoeuvres,  with  all  the 
other  German  princes.  Burnamy  had  hoped  for  some 
voluntary  excitement  among  the  people,  at  least 
enough  to  warrant  him  in  making  a  paper  about  Sedan 
Day  in  Weimar,  which  he  could  sell  somewhere ;  but 
the  night  was  falling,  and  there  was  still  no  sign  of 
popular  rejoicing  over  the  French  humiliation  twenty- 
eight  years  before,  except  in  the  multitude  of  Japan 
ese  lanterns  which  the  children  were  everywhere  car 
rying  at  the  ends  of  sticks.  -  Babies  had  them  in  their 
carriages,  and  the  effect  of  the  floating  lights  in  the 
winding,  up-and-down-hill  streets  was  charming  even 
to  Burnamy's  lack-lustre  eyes.  He  went  by  his  hotel 
and  on  to  a  cafe  with  a  garden,  where  there  was  a 
patriotic  concert  promised ;  he  supped  there,  and  then 
sat  dreamily  behind  his  beer,  while  the  music  banged 
and  brayed  round  him  unheeded. 

Presently  he  heard  a  voice  of  friendly  banter  say 
ing  in  English,  "  May  I  sit  at  your  table  ? "  and  he 
saw  an  ironical  face  looking  down  on  him.  "  There 
doesn't  seem  any  other  place." 

"Why,  Mr.  March!"  Burnamy  sprang  up  and 
wrung  the  hand  held  out  to  him,  but  he  choked  with 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  461 

his  words  of  recognition ;  it  was  so  good  to  see  this 
faithful  friend  again,  though  he  saw  him  now  as  he 
had  seen  him  last,  just  when  he  had  so  little  reason 
to  be  proud  of  himself. 

March  settled  his  person  in  the  chair  facing  Bur- 
namy,  and  then  glanced  round  at  the  joyful  jam  of 
people  eating  and  drinking,  under  a  firmament  of 
lanterns.  "  This  is  pretty,"  he  said,  "  mighty  pretty. 
I  shall  make  Mrs.  March  sorry  for  not  coming,  when 
I  go  back." 

"  Is  Mrs.  March — she  is — with  you — in  Weimar  ? " 
Burnamy  asked  stupidly. 

March  forbore  to  take  advantage  of  him.  "  Oh, 
yes.  We  saw  you  out  at  Belvedere  this  afternoon. 
Mrs.  March  thought  for  a  moment  that  you  meant  not 
to  see  us.  A  woman  likes  to  exercise  her  imagination 
in  those  little  flights." 

"  I  never  dreamed  of  your  being  there — I  never 
saw — "  Burnamy  began. 

"  Of  course  not.  Neither  did  Mrs.  Etkins,  nor 
Miss  Etkins;  she  was  looking  very  pretty.  Have 
you  been  here  some  time  ? " 

"  Not  long.  A  week  or  so.  I've  been  at  the  pa 
rade  at  Wiirzburg." 

u  At  Wurzburg !  Ah,  how  little  the  world  is,  or 
how  large  Wurzburg  is !  We  were  there  nearly  a 
week,  and  we  pervaded  the  place.  But  there  was  a 
great  crowd  for  you  to  hide  in  from  us.  What  had 
I  better  take  ? "  A  waiter  had  come  up,  and  was 
standing  at  March's  elbow.  "  I  suppose  I  mustn't 
sit  here  without  ordering  something  ?  " 


462          THEIR   SILVER   WEBBING   JOURNEY. 

"  White  wine  and  selters,"  said  Burnamy  vaguely. 

"  The  very  thing  !  Why  didn't  I  think  of  it  ?  It's 
a  divine  drink :  it  satisfies  without  filling.  I  had  it  a 
night  or  two  before  we  left  home,  in  the  Madison 
Square  Roof  Garden.  Have  you  seen  Every  Other 
Week  lately  ? " 

"  No,"  said  Burnamy,  with  more  spirit  than  he  had 
yet  shown. 

"  We've  just  got  our  mail  from  Nuremberg.  The 
last  number  has  a  poem  in  it  that  I  rather  like." 
March  laughed  to  see  the  young  fellow's  face  light  up 
with  joyful  consciousness.  "  Come  round  to  my 
hotel,  after  you're  tired  here,  and  I'll  let  you  see  it. 
There's  no  hurry.  Did  you  notice  the  little  children 
with  their  lanterns,  as  you  came  along  ?  It's  the  gen 
tlest  effect  that  a  warlike  memory  ever  came  to.  The 
French  themselves  couldn't  have  minded  those  inno 
cents  carrying  those  soft  lights  on  the  day  of  their 
disaster.  You  ought  to  get  something  out  of  that, 
and  I've  got  a  subject  in  trust  for  you  from  Rose 
Adding.  He  and  his  mother  were  at  Wurzburg ;  I'm 
sorry  to  say  the  poor  little  chap  didn't  seem  very  well. 
They've  gone  to  Holland  for  the  sea  air."  March  had 
been  talking  for  quantity  in  compassion  of  the  em 
barrassment  in  which  Burnamy  seemed  bound ;  but 
he  questioned  how  far  he  ought  to  bring  comfort  to 
the  young  fellow  merely  because  he  liked  him.  So 
far  as  he  could  make  out,  Burnamy  had  been  doing 
rather  less  than  nothing  to  retrieve  himself  since  they 
had  met ;  and  it  was  by  an  impulse  that  he  could  not 
have  logically  defended  to  Mrs.  March  that  he  re- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  463 

sumed.  "We  found  another  friend  of  yours  in 
Wurzburg:  Mr.  Stoller." 

"  Mr.  Stoller  ? "  Burnamy  faintly  echoed. 

"  Yes  ;  he  was  there  to  give  his  daughters  a  holiday 
during  the  manoeuvres  ;  and  they  made  the  most  of  it 
He  wanted  us  to  go  to  the  parade  with  his  family  • 
but  we  declined.  The  twins  were  pretty  nearly  the 
death  of  General  Triscoe." 

Again  Burnamy  echoed  him.     "  General  Triscoe  ? " 

"Oh,  yes:  I  didn't  tell  you.  General  Triscoe  and 
his  daughter  had  corne  on  with  Mrs.  Adding  and 
Rose.  Kenby — you  remember  Kenby,  on  the  Nor- 
umUa? — Kenby  happened  to  be  there,  too;  we  were 
quite  a  family  party ;  and  Stoller  got  the  general  to 
drive  out  to  the  manoeuvres  with  him  and  his  girls." 

Now  that  he  was  launched,  March  rather  enjoyed 
letting  himself  go.  He  did  not  know  what  he  should 
say  to  Mrs.  March  when  he  came  to  confess  having 
told  Burnamy  everything  before  she  got  a  chance  at 
him  ;  he  pushed  on  recklessly,  upon  the  principle, 
which  probably  will  not  hold  in  morals,  that  one  may 
as  well  be  hung  for  a  sheep  as  a  lamb.  "  I  have  a 
message  for  you  from  Mr.  Stoller." 

"  For  me  ?  "  Burnamy  gasped. 

"  I've  been  wondering  how  I  should  put  it,  for  I 
hadn't  expected  to  see  you.  But  it's  simply  this :  he 
wants  you  to  know — and  he  seemed  to  want  me  to 
know — that  he  doesn't  hold  you  accountable  in  the 
way  he  did.  He's  thought  it  all  over,  and  he's  de 
cided  that  he  had  no  right  to  expect  you  to  save  him 
from  his  own  ignorance  where  he  was  making  a  show 


464  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

of  knowledge.  As  he  said,  he  doesn't  choose  to  plead 
the  baby  act.  He  says  that  you're  all  right,  and  your 
place  on  the  paper  is  open  to  you." 

Burnamy  had  not  been  very  prompt  before,  but 
now  he  seemed  braced  for  instant  response.  "  I  think 
he's  wrong,"  he  said,  so  harshly  that  the  people  at 
the  next  table  looked  round.  "  His  feeling  as  he 
does  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  fact,  and  it  doesn't 
let  me  out." 

March  would  have  liked  to  take  him  in  his  arms  ; 
he  merely  said,  "  I  think  you're  quite  right,  as  to  that. 
But  there's  such  a  thing  as  forgiveness,  you  know.  It 
doesn't  change  the  nature  of  what  you've  done ;  but  as 
far  as  the  sufferer  from  it  is  concerned,  it  annuls  it." 

"  Yes,  I  understand  that.  But  I  can't  accept  his 
forgiveness  if  I  hate  him." 

"  But  perhaps  you  won't  always  hate  him.  Some 
day  you  may  have  a  chance  to  do  him  a  good  turn. 
It's  rather  banale  ;  but  there  doesn't  seem  any  other 
way.  Well,  I  have  given  you  his  message.  Are  you 
going  with  me  to  get  that  poem?" 

When  March  had  given  Burnamy  the  paper  at  his 
hotel,  and  Burnamy  had  put  it  in  his  pocket,  the 
young  man  said  he  thought  he  would  take  some  coffee, 
and  he  asked  March  to  join  him  in  the  dining-room 
where  they  had  stood  talking. 

"  No,  thank  you,"  said  the  elder,  "  I  don't  propose 
sitting  up  all  night,  and  you'll  excuse  me  if  I  go  to 
bed  now.  It's  a  little  informal  to  leave  a  guest — " 

"  You're  not  leaving  a  guest !  I'm  at  home  here. 
I'm  staying  in  this  hotel  too." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  465 

March  said,  "  Oh  ! "  and  then  he  added  abruptly, 
"  Good-night,"  and  went  up  stairs  under  the  fresco  of 
the  five  poets. 

"  Whom  were  you  talking  with  below  ? "  asked  Mrs. 
March  through  the  door  opening  into  his  room  from 
hers. 

"  Burnamy,"  he  answered  from  within.  "  He's 
staying  in  this  house.  He  let  me  know  just  as  I  was 
going  to  turn  him  out  for  the  night.  It's  one  of  those 
little  uncandors  of  his  that  throw  suspicion  on  his 
honesty  in  great  things." 

"  Oh  !  Then  you've  been  telling  him,"  she  said, 
with  a  mental  bound  high  above  and  far  beyond  the 
point. 

"Everything." 

"  About  Stoller,  too  ? " 

"  About  Stoller  and  his  daughters,  and  Mrs.  Add 
ing  and  Rose  and  Kenby  and  General  Triscoe  and 
Agatha." 

"Very  well.  That's  what  I  call  shabby.  Don't 
ever  talk  to  me  again  about  the  inconsistencies  of 
women.  But  now  there's  something  perfectly  fear 
ful." 

"  What  is  it  ? " 

"  A  letter  from  Miss  Triscoe  came  after  you  were 
gone,  asking  us  to  find  rooms  in  some  hotel  for  her 
and  her  father  to-morrow.  He  isn't  well,  and  they're 
coming.  And  I've  telegraphed  them  to  come  here. 
Now  what  do  you  say  ? " 


LXII. 

THEY  could  see  no  way  out  of  the  trouble,  and  Mrs. 
March  could  not  resign  herself  to  it  till  her  husband 
suggested  that  she  should  consider  it  providential. 
This  touched  the  lingering  superstition  in  which  she 
had  been  ancestrally  taught  to  regard  herself  as  a 
means,  when  in  a  very  tight  place,  and  to  leave  the 
responsibility  with  the  moral  government  of  the  uni 
verse.  As  she  now  perceived,  it  had  been  the  same 
as  ordered  that  they  should  see  Burnamy  under  such 
conditions  in  the  afternoon  that  they  could  not  speak 
to  him,  and  hear  where  he  was  staying;  and  in  an  in 
ferior  degree  it  had  been  the  same  as  ordered  that 
March  should  see  him  in  the  evening  and  tell  him 
everything,  so  that  she  should  know  just  how  to  act 
when  she  saw  him  in  the  morning.  If  he  could  plaus 
ibly  account  for  the  renewal  of  his  flirtation  with  Miss 
Etkins,  or  if  he  seemed  generally  worthy  apart  from 
that,  she  could  forgive  him. 

It  was  so  pleasant  when  he  came  in  at  breakfast 
with  his  well-remembered  smile,  that  she  did  not  re- 


1?fiEiR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  467 

quire  from  him  any  explicit  defence.  While  they 
talked  she  was  righting  herself  in  an  undercurrent  of 
drama  with  Miss  Triscoe,  and  explaining  to  her  that 
they  could  not  possibly  wait  over  for  her  and  her 
father  in  Weimar,  but  must  be  off  that  day  for  Ber 
lin,  as  they  had  made  all  their  plans.  It  was  not  easy, 
even  in  drama  where  one  has  everything  one's  own 
way,  to  prove  that  she  could  not  without  impiety  so 
far  interfere  with  the  course  of  Providence  as  to  pre 
vent  Miss  Triscoe's  coming  with  her  father  to  the 
same  hotel  where  Burnamy  was  staying.  She  con 
trived,  indeed,  to  persuade  her  that  she  had  not  known 
he  was  staying  there  when  she  telegraphed  them  where 
to  come,  and  that  in  the  absence  of  any  open  confi 
dence  from  Miss  Triscoe  she  was  not  obliged  to  sup 
pose  that  his  presence  would  be  embarrassing. 

March  proposed  leaving  her  with  Burnamy  while 
he  went  up  into  the  town  and  interviewed  the  house 
of  Schiller,  which  he  had  not  done  yet;  and  as  soon 
as  he  got  himself  away  she  came  to  business,  break 
ing  altogether  from  the  inner  drama  with  Miss  Tris 
coe  and  devoting  herself  to  Burnamy.  They  had 
already  got  so  far  as  to  have  mentioned  the  meeting 
with  the  Triscoes  in  Wiirzburg,  and  she  said :  "  Did 
Mr.  March  tell  you  they  were  coming  here  ?  Or, 
no  !  We  hadn't  heard  then.  Yes,  they  are  coming 
to-morrow.  They  may  be  going  to  stay  some  time. 
She  talked  of  Weimar  when  we  first  spoke  of  Ger 
many  on  the  ship."  Burnamy  said  nothing,  and  she 
suddenly  added,  with  a  sharp  glance,  "  They  wanted 
us  to  get  them  rooms,  and  we  advised  their  coming 


468          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

to  this  house."  He  started  very  satisfactorily,  and 
"  Do  you  think  they  would  be  comfortable,  here  ? " 
she  pursued. 

"  Oh,  yes,  very.  They  can  have  my  room ;  it's 
southeast;  I  shall  be  going  into  other  quarters."  She 
did  not  say  anything  ;  and  "  Mrs.  March,"  he  began 
again,  "  what  is  the  use  of  my  beating  about  the 
bush  ?  You  must  know  what  I  went  back  to  Carls 
bad  for,  that  night — " 

"  No  one  ever  told — " 

"  Well,  you  must  have  made  a  pretty  good  guess. 
But  it  was  a  failure.  I  ought  to  have  failed,  and  I 
did.  She  said  that  unless  her  father  liked  it —  And 
apparently  he  hasn't  liked  it."  Burnamy  smiled  rue 
fully. 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  She  didn't  know  where  you 
were ! " 

"  She  could  have  got  word  to  me  if  she  had  had 
good  news  for  me.  They've  forwarded  other  letters 
from  Pupp's.  But  it's  all  right ;  I  had  no  business  to 
go  back  to  Carlsbad.  Of  course  you  didn't  know  I 
was  in  this  house  when  you  told  them  to  come;  and 
I  must  clear  out.  I  had  better  clear  out  of  Weimar, 
too." 

"  No,  I  don't  think  so ;  I  have  no  right  to  pry  into 
your  affairs,  but — " 

"  Oh,  they're  wide  enough  open  ! " 

"  And  you  may  have  changed  your  mind.  I 
thought  you  might,  when  I  saw  you  yesterday  at  Bel 
vedere — " 

"  I  was  only  trying  to  make  bad  worse." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  469 

"  Then  I  think  the  situation  has  changed  entirely 
through  what  Mr.  Stoller  said  to  Mr.  March." 

"  I  can't  see  how  it  has.  I  committed  an  act  of 
shabby  treachery,  and  I'm  as  much  to  blame  as  if  he 
still  wanted  to  punish  me  for  it." 

"  Did  Mr.  March  say  that  to  you  ? " 

"  No ;  I  said  that  to  Mr.  March ;  and  he  couldn't 
answer  it,  and  you  can't.  You're  very  good,  and  very 
kind,  but  you  can't  answer  it." 

"  I  can  answer  it  very  well,"  she  boasted,  but  she 
could  find  nothing  better  to  say  than,  "  It's  your  duty 
to  her  to  see  her  and  let  her  know." 

"  Doesn't  she  know  already  ? " 

"  She  has  a  right  to  know  it  from  you.  I  think 
you  are  morbid,  Mr.  Burnamy.  You  know  very  well 
I  didn't  like  your  doing  that  to  Mr.  Stoller.  I  didn't 
say  so  at  the  time,  because  you  seemed  to  feel  it 
enough  yourself.  But  I  did  like  your  owning  up  to 
it,"  and  here  Mrs.  March  thought  it  time  to  trot  out 
her  borrowed  battle-horse  again.  "  My  husband  al 
ways  says  that  if  a  person  owns  up  to  an  error,  fully 
and  faithfully,  as  you've  always  done,  they  make  it 
the  same  in  its  consequences  to  them  as  if  it  had 
never,  been  done." 

"  Does  Mr.  March  say  that  ?  "  asked  Burnamy  with 
a  relenting  smile. 

"  Indeed  he  does  ! " 

Burnamy  hesitated  ;  then  he  asked,  gloomily  again : 
"  And  what  about  the  consequences  to  the  other  fel 
low  ?  " 

"  A  woman,"  said  Mrs.  March,  "  has  no  concern 


470  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

with  them.    And  besides,  /  think  you've  done  all  you 
could  to  save  Mr.  Stoller  from  the  consequences." 
"  I  haven't  done  anything." 

"  No  matter.  You  would  if  you  could.  I  won 
der,"  she  broke  off,  to  prevent  his  persistence  at  a 
point  where  her  nerves  were  beginning  to  give  way, 
"  what  can  be  keeping  Mr.  March  ? " 

Nothing  much  more  important,  it  appeared  later, 
than  the  pleasure  of  sauntering  through  the  streets  on 
the  way  to  the  house  of  Schiller,  and  looking  at  the 
pretty  children  going  to  school,  with  books  under 
their  arms.  It  was  the  day  for  the  schools  to  open  af 
ter  the  long  summer  vacation,  and  there  was  a  fresh 
ness  of  expectation  in  the  shining  faces  which,  if  it 
could  not  light  up  his  own  graybeard  visage,  could 
at  least  touch  his  heart. 

When  he  reached  the  Schiller  house  he  found  that 
it  was  really  not  the  Schiller  house,  but  the  Schiller 
flat,  of  three  or  four  rooms,  one  flight  up,  whose  win 
dows  look  out  upon  the  street  named  after  the  poet. 
The  whole  place  is  bare  and  clean ;  in  one  corner  of 
the  large  room  fronting  the  street  stands  Schiller's 
writing-table,  with  his  chair  before  it;  with  the  foot 
extending  toward  this  there  stands,  in  another  corner, 
the  narrow  bed  on  which  he  died;  some  withered 
wreaths  on  the  pillow  frame  a  picture  of  his  death- 
mask,  which  at  first  glance  is  like  his  dead  face  lying 
there.  It  is  all  rather  tasteless,  and  all  rather  touch 
ing,  and  the  place  with  its  meagre  appointments,  as 
compared  with  the  rich  Goethe  house,  suggests  that 
personal  competition  with  Goethe  in  which  Schiller 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  471 

is  always  falling  into  the  second  place.  Whether  it 
will  be  finally  so  with  him  in  literature  it  is  too  early 
to  ask  of  time,  and  upon  other  points  eternity  will 
not  be  interrogated.  "  The  great  Goethe  and  the 
good  Schiller,"  they  remain  ;  and  yet,  March  reasoned, 
there  was  something  good  in  Goethe  and  something 
great  in  Schiller. 

He  was  so  full  of  the  pathos  of  their  inequality 
before  the  world  that  he  did  not  heed  the  warning  on 
the  door  of  the  pastry-shop  near  the  Schiller  house, 
and  on  opening  it  he  bedaubed  his  hand  with  the 
fresh  paint  on  it.  He  was  then  in  such  a  state  that 
he  could  not  bring  his  mind  to  bear  upon  the  question 
of  which  cakes  his  wife  would  probably  prefer,  and 
he  stood  helplessly  holding  up  his  hand  till  the  good 
woman  behind  the  counter  discovered  his  plight,  and 
uttered  a  loud  cry  of  compassion.  She  ran  and  got  a 
wet  napkin,  which  she  rubbed  with  soap,  and  then 
she  instructed  him  by  word  and  gesture  to  rub  his 
hand  upon  it,  and  she  did  not  leave  him  till  his  rescue 
was  complete.  He  let  her  choose  a  variety  of  the 
cakes  for  him,  and  came  away  with  a  gay  paper  bag 
full  of  them,  and  with  the  feeling  that  he  had  been 
in  more  intimate  relations  with  the  life  of  Weimar 
than  travellers  are  often  privileged  to  be.  He  argued 
from  the  instant  and  intelligent  sympathy  of  the  pas 
try  woman  a  high  grade  of  culture  in  all  classes ;  and 
he  conceived  the  notion  of  pretending  to  Mrs.  March 
that  he  had  got  these  cakes  from  a  descendant  of 
Schiller. 

His  deceit  availed  with  her  for  the  brief  moment 


472  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

in  which  she  always,  after  so  many  years'  experience 
of  his  duplicity,  believed  anything  he  told  her.  They 
dined  merrily  together  at  their  hotel,  and  then  Bur- 
namy  came  down  to  the  station  with  them  and  was 
very  comfortable  to  March  in  helping  him  to  get  their 
tickets  and  their  baggage  registered.  The  train  which 
was  to  take  them  to  Halle,  where  they  were  to  change 
for  Berlin,  was  rather  late,  and  they  had  but  ten  min 
utes  after  it  came  in  before  it  would  start  again.  Mrs. 
March  was  watching  impatiently  at  the  window  of 
the  waiting-room  for  the  dismounting  passengers  to 
clear  the  platform  and  allow  the  doors  to  be  opened ; 
suddenly  she  gave  a  cry,  and  turned  and  ran  into  the 
passage  by  which  the  new  arrivals  were  pouring  out 
toward  the  superabundant  omnibuses.  March  and 
Burnamy,  who  had  been  talking  apart,  mechanically 
rushed  after  her  and  found  her  kissing  Miss  Triscoe 
and  shaking  hands  with  the  general  amidst  a  tempest 
of  questions  and  answers,  from  which  it  appeared  that 
the  Triscoes  had  got  tired  of  staying  in  Wiirzburg, 
and  had  simply  come  on  to  Weimar  a  day  sooner  than 
tu^v  had  intended. 

The  general  was  rather  much  bundled  up  for  a  day 
which  was  mild  for  a  German  summer  day,  and  he 
coughed  out  an  explanation  that  he  had  taken  an 
abominable  cold  at  that  ridiculous  parade,  and  had 
not  shaken  it  off  .  yet.  He  had  a  notion  that  change 
of  air  would  be  better  for  him ;  it  could  not  be  worse. 

He  seemed  a  little  vague  as  to  Burnainy,  rather 
than  inimical.  While  the  ladies  were  still  talking 
eagerly  together  in  proffer  and  acceptance  of  Mrs. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  473 

March's  lamentations  that  she  should  be  going  away 
just  as  Miss  Triscoe  was  coming,  he  asked  if  the  om 
nibus  for  their  hotel  was  there.  He  by  no  means  re 
sented  Burnamy's  assurance  that  it  was,  and  he  did 
not  refuse  to  let  him  order  their  baggage,  little  and 
large,  loaded  upon  it.  By  the  time  this  was  done, 
Mrs.  March  and  Miss  Triscoe  had  so  far  detached 
themselves  from  each  other  that  they  could  separate 
after  one  more  formal  expression  of  regret  and  for 
giveness.  With  a  lament  into  which  she  poured  a 
world  of  inarticulate  emotions,  Mrs.  March  wrenched 
herself  from  the  place,  and  suffered  herself  to  be 
pushed  toward  her  train.  But  with  the  last  long  look 
which  she  cast  over  her  shoulder,  before  she  vanished 
into  the  waiting-room,  she  saw  Miss  Triscoe  and  Bur- 
namy  transacting  the  elaborate  politenesses  of  amiable 
strangers  with  regard  to  the  very  small  bag  which  the 
girl  had  in  her  hand.  He  succeeded  in  relieving  her 
of  it ;  and  then  he  led  the  way  out  of  the  station  on 
the  left  of  the  general,  while  Miss  Triscoe  brought  up 
the  rear. 


LXIII. 

FROM  the  window  of  the  train  as  it  drew  out  Mrs. 
March  tried  for  a  glimpse  of  the  omnibus  in  which 
her  proteges  were  now  rolling  away  together.  As 
they  were  quite  out  of  sight  in  the  omnibus,  which 
was  itself  out  of  sight,  she  failed,  but  as  she  fell 
back  against  her  seat  she  treated  the  recent  incident 
with  a  complexity  and  simultaneity  of  which  no  re 
port  can  give  an  idea.  At  the  end  one  fatal  convic 
tion  remained:  that  in  everything  she  had  said  she 
had  failed  to  explain  to  Miss  Triscoe  how  Burnamy 
happened  to  be  in  Weimar  and  how  he  happened  to 
be  there  with  them  in  the  station.  She  required  March 
to  say  how  she  had  overlooked  the  very  things  which 
she  ought  to  have  mentioned  first,  and  which  she  had 
on  the  point  of  her  tongue  the  whole  time.  She  went 
over  the  entire  ground  again  to  see  if  she  could  dis 
cover  the  reason  why  she  had  made  such  an  unac 
countable  break,  and  it  appeared  that  she  was  led  to 
it  by  his  rushing  after  her  with  Burnamy  before  she 
had  had  a  chance  to  say  a  word  about  him ;  of  course 
she  could  not  say  anything  in  his  presence.  This 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  475 

gave  her  some  comfort,  and  there  was  consolation  in 
the  fact  that  she  had  left  them  together  without  the 
least  intention  or  connivance,  and  now,  no  matter 
what  happened,  she  could  not  accuse  herself,  and  he 
could  not  accuse  her  of  match-making. 

He  said  that  his  own  sense  of  guilt  was  so  great 
that  he  should  not  dream  of  accusing  her  of  anything 
except  of  regret  that  now  she  could  never  claim  the 
credit  of  bringing  the  lovers  together  under  circum 
stances  so  favorable.  As  soon  as  they  were  engaged 
they  could  join  in  renouncing  her  with  a  good  con 
science,  and  they  would  probably  make  this  the  basis 
of  their  efforts  to  propitiate  the  general. 

She  said  she  did  not  care,  and  with  the  mere  re 
moval  of  the  lovers  in  space,  her  interest  in  them 
began  to  abate.  They  began  to  be  of  a  minor  impor 
tance  in  the  anxieties  of  the  change  of  trains  at  Halle, 
and  in  the  excitement  of  settling  into  the  express 
from  Frankfort  there  were  moments  when  they  were 
altogether  forgotten.  The  car  was  of  almost  Ameri 
can  length,  and  it  ran  with  almost  American  smooth 
ness  ;  when  the  conductor  came  and  collected  an  extra 
fare  for  their  seats,  the  Marches  felt  that  if  the  charge 
had  been  two  dollars  instead  of  two  marks  they  would 
have  had  every  advantage  of  American  travel. 

On  the  way  to  Berlin  the  country  was  now  fertile 
and  flat,  and  now  sterile  and  flat;  near  the  capital  the 
level  sandy  waste  spread  almost  to  its  gates.  The 
train  ran  quickly  through  the  narrow  fringe  of  suburbs, 
and  then  they  were  in  one  of  those  vast  Continental 
stations  which  put  our  outdated  depots  to  shame.  The 


476  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

good  traeger  who  took  possession  of  them  and  their 
hand-bags,  put  their  boxes  on  a  baggage-bearing 
drosky,  and  then  got  them  another  drosky  for  their 
personal  transportation.  This  was  a  drosky  of  the 
first-class,  but  they  would  not  have  thought  it  so, 
either  from  the  vehicle  itself,  or  from  the  appearance 
of  the  driver  and  his  horses.  The  public  carriages  of 
Germany  are  the  shabbiest  in  the  world ;  at  Berlin  the 
horses  look  like  old  hair  trunks  and  the  drivers  like 
their  moth-eaten  contents. 

The  Marches  got  no  splendor  for  the  two  prices 
they  paid,  and  their  approach  to  their  hotel  on  Unter 
den  Linden  was  as  unimpressive  as  the  ignoble  avenue 
itself.  It  was  a  moist,  cold  evening,  and  the  mean, 
tiresome  street,  slopped  and  splashed  under  its  two 
rows  of  small  trees,  to  which  the  thinning  leaves  clung 
like  wet  rags,  between  long  lines  of  shops  and  hotels 
which  had  neither  the  grace  of  Paris  nor  the  grandi 
osity  of  New  York.  March  quoted  in  bitter  derision : 

"  Bees,  bees,  was  it  your  hydromel, 
Under  the  Lindens  ?  " 

and  his  wife  said  that  if  Commonwealth  Avenue  in 
Boston  could  be  imagined  with  its  trees  and  without 
their  beauty,  flanked  by  the  architecture  of  Sixth 
Avenue,  with  dashes  of  the  west  side  of  Union 
Square,  that  would  be  the  famous  Unter  den  Linden, 
where  she  had  so  resolutely  decided  that  they  would 
stay  while  in  Berlin. 

They  had  agreed  upon  the  hotel,  and  neither  could 
blame  the  other  because  it  proved  second-rate  in 
everything  but  its  charges.  They  ate  a  poorish  table 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  477 

d'hote  dinner  in  such  low  spirits  that  March  had  no 
heart  to  get  a  rise  from  his  wife  by  calling  her  notice 
to  the  mouse  which  fed  upon  the  crumbs  about  their 
feet  while  they  dined.  Their  English-speaking  waiter 
said  that  it  was  a  very  warm  evening,  and  they  never 
knew  whether  this  was  because  he  was  a  humorist,  or 
because  he  was  lonely  and  wished  to  talk,  or  because 
it  really  was  a  warm  evening,  for  Berlin.  When  they 
had  finished,  they  went  out  and  drove  about  the 
greater  part  of  the  evening  looking  for  another  hotel, 
whose  first  requisite  should  be  that  it  was  not  on  Un- 
ter  den  Linden.  What  mainly  determined  Mrs.  March 
in  favor  of  the  large,  handsome,  impersonal  place 
they  fixed  upon  was  the  fact  that  it  was  equipped  for 
steam-heating;  what  determined  March  was  the  fact 
that  it  had  a  passenger-office  where  when  he  wished 
to  leave,  he  could  buy  his  railroad  tickets  and  have 
his  baggage  checked  without  the  maddening  anxiety 
of  doing  it  at  the  station.  But  it  was  precisely  in 
these  points  that  the  hotel  which  admirably  fulfilled 
its  other  functions  fell  short.  The  weather  made  a 
succession  of  efforts  throughout  their  stay  to  clear  up 
cold;  it  merely  grew  colder  without  clearing  up,  but 
this  seemed  to  offer  no  suggestion  of  steam  for  heating 
their  bleak  apartment  and  the  chilly  corridors  to  the 
management.  With  the  help  of  a  large  lamp  which 
they  kept  burning  night  and  day  they  got  the  tem 
perature  of  their  rooms  up  to  sixty ;  there  was  neither 
stove  nor  fireplace,  the  cold  electric  bulbs  diffused 
a  frosty  glare ;  and  in  the  vast,  stately  dining-room 
with  its  vaulted  roof,  there  was  nothing  to  warm  them 


478  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

but  their  plates,  and  the  handles  of  their  knives  and 
forks,  which,  by  a  mysterious  inspiration,  were  always 
hot.  When  they  were  ready  to  go,  March  experi 
enced  from  the  apathy  of  the  baggage  clerk  and  the 
reluctance  of  the  porters  a  more  piercing  distress  than 
any  he  had  known  at  the  railroad  stations ;  and  one 
luckless  valise  which  he  ordered  sent  after  him  by 
express  reached  his  bankers  in  Paris  a  fortnight  over 
due,  with  an  accumulation  of  charges  upon  it  out 
valuing  the  books  which  it  contained. 

But  these  were  minor  defects  in  an  establishment 
which  had  many  merits,  and  was  mainly  of  the  tem 
perament  and  intention  of  the  large  English  railroad 
hotels.  They  looked  from  their  windows  down  into 
a  gardened  square,  peopled  with  a  full  share  of  the 
superabounding  statues  of  Berlin  and  frequented  by 
babies  and  nurse  maids  who  seemed  not  to  mind  the 
cold  any  more  than  the  stone  kings  and  generals. 
The  aspect  of  this  square,  like  the  excellent  cooking  of 
the  hotel  and  the  architecture  of  the  imperial  capital, 
suggested  the  superior  civilization  of  Paris.  Even 
the  rows  of  gray  houses  and  private  palaces  of  Berlin 
are  in  the  French  taste,  which  is  the  only  taste  there  is 
in  Berlin.  The  suggestion  of  Paris  is  constant,  but  it 
is  of  Paris  in  exile,  and  without  the  chic  which  the  city 
wears  in  its  native  air.  The  crowd  lacks  this  as  much 
as  the  architecture  and  the  sculpture ;  there  is  no  dis 
tinction  among  the  men  except  for  now  and  then  a 
military  figure,  and  among  the  women  no  style  such 
as  relieves  the  commonplace  rush  of  the  New  York 
streets.  The  Berliners  are  plain  and  ill  dressed,  both 


THEIR   SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  479 

men  and  women,  and  even  the  little  children  are  plain. 
Every  one  is  ill  dressed,  but  no  one  is  ragged,  and 
among  the  undersized  homely  folk  of  the  lower  classes 
there  is  no  such  poverty-stricken  shabbiness  as  shocks 
and  insults  the  sight  in  New  York.  That  which  dis 
tinctly  recalls  our  metropolis  is  the  lofty  passage  of 
the  elevated  trains  intersecting  the  prospectives  of 
many  streets ;  but  in  Berlin  the  elevated  road  is  car 
ried  on  massive  brick  archways  and  not  lifted  upon 
gay,  crazy  iron  ladders  like  ours. 

When  you  look  away  from  this,  and  regard  Berlin 
on  its  aesthetic  side  you  are  again  in  that  banished 
Paris,  whose  captive  art-soul  is  made  to  serve,  so  far 
as  it  may  be  enslaved  to  such  an  effect,  in  the  cele 
bration  of  the  German  triumph  over  France.  Berlin 
has  never  the  presence  of  a  great  capital,  however,  in 
spite  of  its  perpetual  monumental  insistence.  There 
is  no  streaming  movement  in  broad  vistas;  the  dull- 
looking  population  moves  sluggishly ;  there  is  no  show 
of  fine  equipages.  The  prevailing  tone  of  the  city  and 
the  sky  is  gray ;  but  under  the  cloudy  heaven  there  is 
no  responsive  Gothic  solemnity  in  the  architecture. 
There  are  hints  of  the  older  German  cities  in  some  of 
the  remote  and  obscure  streets,  but  otherwise  all  is  as 
new  as  Boston,  which  in  fact  the  actual  Berlin  hardly 
antedates. 

There  are  easily  more  statues  in  Berlin  than  in  any 
other  city  in  the  world,  but  they  only  unite  in  failing 
to  give  Berlin  an  artistic  air.  They  stand  in  long 
rows  on  the  cornices;  they  crowd  the  pediments; 
they  poise  on  one  leg  above  domes  and  arches ;  they 


480  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

shelter  themselves  in  niches  ;  they  ride  about  on  horse 
back  ;  they  sit  or  lounge  on  street  corners  or  in  garden 
walks ;  all  with  a  mediocrity  in  the  older  sort  which 
fails  of  any  impression.  If  they  were  only  furiously 
baroque  they  would  be  something,  and  it  may  be  from 
a  sense  of  this  that  there  is  a  self-assertion  in  the  re 
cent  sculptures,  which  are  always  patriotic,  more  noisy 
and  bragging  than  anything  else  in  perennial  brass. 
This  offensive  art  is  the  modern  Prussian  avatar  of 
the  old  German  romantic  spirit,  and  bears  the  same 
relation  to  it  that  modern  romanticism  in  literature 
bears  to  romance.  It  finds  its  apotheosis  in  the  mon 
ument  to  Kaiser  Wilhelm  I.,  a  vast  incoherent  group 
of  swelling  and  swaggering  bronze,  commemorating 
the  victory  of  the  first  Prussian  Emperor  in  the  war 
with  the  last  French  Emperor,  and  avenging  the  van 
quished  upon  the  victors  by  its  ugliness.  The  un 
gainly  and  irrelevant  assemblage  of  men  and  animals 
backs  away  from  the  imperial  palace,  and  saves  itself 
too  soon  from  plunging  over  the  border  of  a  canal  be 
hind  it,  not  far  from  Ranch's  great  statue  of  the  great 
Frederic.  To  come  to  it  from  the  simplicity  and 
quiet  of  that  noble  work  is  like  passing  from  some 
exquisite  masterpiece  of  naturalistic  acting  to  the  rant 
and  uproar  of  melodrama ;  and  the  Marches  stood 
stunned  and  bewildered  by  its  wild  explosions. 

When  they  could  escape  they  found  themselves  so 
convenient  to  the  imperial  palace  that  they  judged 
best  to  discharge  at  once  the  obligation  to  visit  it 
which  must  otherwise  weigh  upon  them.  They  en 
tered  the  court  without  opposition  from  the  sentinel, 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  481 

and  joined  other  strangers  straggling  instinctively 
toward  a  waiting-room  in  one  corner  of  the  building, 
where  after  they  had  increased  to  some  thirty,  a  cus 
todian  took  charge  of  them,  and  led  them  up  a  series 
of  inclined  plains  of  brick  to  the  state  apartments. 
In  the  antechamber  they  found  a  provision  of  immense 
felt  over-shoes  which  they  were  expected  to  put  on 
for  their  passage  over  the  waxed  marquetry  of  the 
halls.  These  roomy  slippers  were  designed  for  the 
accommodation  of  the  native  boots ;  and  upon  the 
mixed  company  of  foreigners  the  effect  was  in  the 
last  degree  humiliating.  The  women's  skirts  some 
what  hid  their  disgrace,  but  the  men  were  openly  put 
to  shame,  and  they  shuffled  forward  with  their  bodies 
at  a  convenient  incline  like  a  company  of  snow-shoers. 
In  the  depths  of  his  own  abasement  March  heard  a 
female  voice  behind  him  sighing  in  American  accents, 
'To  think  I  should  be  polishing  up  these  imperial 
floors  with  my  republican  feet !  " 

The  protest  expressed  the  rebellion  which  he  felt 
mounting  in  his  own  heart  as  they  advanced  through 
the  heavily  splendid  rooms,  in  the  historical  order  of 
the  family  portraits  recording  the  rise  of  the  Prussian 
sovereigns  from  Margraves  to  Emperors.  He  began 
to  realize  here  the  fact  which  grew  upon  him  more 
and  more  that  imperial  Germany  is  not  the  effect  of  a 
popular  impulse  but  of  a  dynastic  propensity.  There 
is  nothing  original  in  the  imperial  palace,  nothing  na 
tional  ;  it  embodies  and  proclaims  a  powerful  personal 
will,  and  in  its  adaptations  of  French  art  it  appeals  to 
no  emotion  in  the  German  witness  nobler  than  his 
EE 


482  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

pride  in  the  German  triumph  over  the  French  in  war. 

March  found  it  tiresome  beyond  the  tiresome  wont 
of  palaces,  and  he  gladly  shook  off  the  sense  of  it 
with  his  felt  shoes.  "  Well,"  he  confided  to  his  wife 
when  they  were  fairly  out-of-doors,  "  if  Prussia  rose 
in  the  strength  of  silence,  as  Carlyle  wants  us  to  be 
lieve,  she  is  taking  it  out  in  talk  now,  and  tall  talk." 

"  Yes,  isn't  she  !  "  Mrs.  March  assented,  and  with 
a  passionate  desire  for  excess  in  a  bad  thing,  which 
we  all  know  at  times,  she  looked  eagerly  about  her 
for  proofs  of  that  odious  militarism  of  the  empire, 
which  ought  to  have  been  conspicuous  in  the  imperial 
capital ;  but  possibly  because  the  troops  were  nearly 
all  away  at  the  manoeuvres,  there  were  hardly  more 
in  the  streets  than  she  had  sometimes  seen  in  Wash 
ington.  Again  the  German  officers  signally  failed  to 
offer  her  any  rudeness  when  she  met  them  on  the 
side-walks.  There  were  scarcely  any  of  them,  and 
perhaps  that  might  have  been  the  reason  why  they 
were  not  more  aggressive  ;  but  a  whole  company  of  sol 
diers  marching  carelessly  up  to  the  palace  from  the 
Brandenburg  gate,  without  music,  or  so  much  style  as 
our  own  militia  often  puts  on,  regarded  her  with  in 
offensive  eyes  so  far  as  they  looked  at  her.  She  de 
clared  that  personally  there  was  nothing  against  the 
Prussians ;  even  when  in  uniform  they  were  kindly 
and  modest-looking  men ;  it  was  when  they  got  up  on 
pedestals,  in  bronze  or  marble,  that  they  began  to 
bully  and  to  brag. 


LXIV. 

THE  dinner  which  the  Marches  got  at  a  restaurant 
on  Unter  den  Linden  almost  redeemed  the  avenue 
from  the  disgrace  it  had  fallen  into  with  them.  It 
was  the  best  meal  they  had  yet  eaten  in  Europe,  and 
as  to  fact  and  form  was  a  sort  of  compromise  between 
a  French  dinner  and  an  English  dinner  which  they  did 
not  hesitate  to  pronounce  Prussian.  The  waiter  who 
served  it  was  a  friendly  spirit,  very  sensible  of  their 
intelligent  appreciation  of  the  dinner ;  and  from  him 
they  formed  a  more  respectful  opinion  of  Berlin  civ 
ilization  than  they  had  yet  held.  After  the  manner 
of  strangers  everywhere  they  judged  the  country  they 
were  visiting  from  such  of  its  inhabitants  as  chance 
brought  them  in  contact  with ;  and  it  would  really  be 
a  good  thing  for  nations  that  wish  to  stand  well  with 
the  world  at  large  to  look  carefully  to  the  behavior  of 
its  cabmen  and  car  conductors,  its  hotel  clerks  and 
waiters,  its  theatre -ticket  sellers  and  ushers,  its  police 
men  and  sacristans,  its  landlords  and  salesmen  ;  for  by 
these  rather  than  by  its  society  women  and  its  states 
men  and  divines,  is  it  really  judged  in  the  books  of 
travellers ;  some  attention  also  should  be  paid  to  the 


484  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

weather,  if  the  climate  is  to  be  praised.  In  the  rail 
road  cafe  at  Potsdam  there  was  a  waiter  so  rude  to 
the  Marches  that  if  they  had  not  been  people  of  great 
strength  of  character  he  would  have  undone  the  favor 
able  impression  the  soldiers  and  civilians  of  Berlin 
generally  had  been  at  such  pains  to  produce  in  them ; 
and  throughout  the  week  of  early  September  which 
they  passed  there,  it  rained  so  much  and  so  bitterly, 
it  was  so  wet  and  so  cold,  that  they  might  have  come 
away  thinking  it  the  worst  climate  in  the  world,  if  it 
had  not  been  for  a  man  whom  they  saw  in  one  of  the 
public  gardens  pouring  a  heavy  stream  from  his  gar 
den  hose  upon  the  shrubbery  already  soaked  and 
shuddering  in  the  cold.  But  this  convinced  them 
that  they  were  suffering  from  weather  and  not  from 
the  climate,  which  must  really  be  hot  and  dry ;  and 
they  went  home  to  their  hotel  and  sat  contentedly 
down  in  a  temperature  of  sixty  degrees.  The  weather 
was  not  always  so  bad ;  one  day  it  was  dry  cold  in 
stead  of  wet  cold,  with  rough,  rusty  clouds  breaking 
a  blue  sky ;  another  day,  up  to  eleven  in  the  forenoon, 
it  was  like  Indian  summer;  then  it  changed  to  a  harsh 
November  air;  and  then  it  relented  and  ended  so 
mildly,  that  they  hired  chairs  in  the  place  before  the 
imperial  palace  for  five  pfennigs  each,  and  sat  watch 
ing  the  life  before  them.  Motherly  women-folk  were 
there  knitting  ;  two  American  girls  in  chairs  near  them 
chatted  together;  some  fine  equipages,  the  only  ones 
they  saw  in  Berlin,  went  by ;  a  dog  and  a  man  (the 
wife  who  ought  to  have  been  in  harness  was  probably 
sick,  and  the  poor  fellow  was  forced  to  take  her  place) 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  485 

passed  dragging  a  cart;  some  schoolboys  who  had 
hung  their  satchels  upon  the  low  railing  were  playing 
about  the  base  of  the  statue  of  Kins:  William  III.  in 

o 

the  joyous  freedom  of  German  childhood. 

They  seemed  the  gayer  for  the  brief  moments  of 
sunshine,  but  to  the  Americans,  who  were  Southern 
by  virtue  of  their  sky,  the  brightness  had  a  sense  of 
lurking  winter  in  it,  such  as  they  remembered  feeling 
on  a  sunny  day  in  Quebec.  The  blue  heaven  looked 
sad ;  but  they  agreed  that  it  fitly  roofed  the  bit  of  old 
feudal  Berlin  which  forms  the  most  ancient  wing  of 
the  Schloss.  This  was  time-blackened  and  rude,  but 
at  least  it  did  not  try  to  be  French,  and  it  overhung 
the  Spree  which  winds  through  the  city  and  gives  it 
the  greatest  charm  it  has.  In  fact  Berlin,  which  is 
otherwise  so  grandiose  without  grandeur  and  so  severe 
without  impressiveness,  is  sympathetic  wherever  the 
Spree  opens  it  to  the  sky.  The  stream  is  spanned  by 
many  bridges,  and  bridges  cannot  well  be  unpictur- 
esque,  especially  if  they  have  statues  to  help  them 
out.  The  Spree  abounds  in  bridges,  and  it  has  a 
charming  habit  of  slow  hay-laden  barges ;  at  the  land 
ings  of  the  little  passenger-steamers  which  ply  upon 
it  there  are  cafes  and  summer-gardens,  and  these  even 
in  the  inclement  air  of  September  suggested  a  friendly 
gayety. 

The  Marches  saw  it  best  in  the  tour  of  the  elevated 
road  in  Berlin  which  they  made  in  an  impassioned 
memory  of  the  elevated  road  in  New  York.  The 
brick  viaducts  which  carry  this  arch  the  Spree  again 
and  again  in  their  course  through  and  around  the 


486  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

city,  but  with  never  quite  such  spectacular  effects  as 
our  spidery  tressels  achieve.  The  stations  are  plea 
sant,  sometimes  with  lunch-counters  and  news-stands, 
but  have  not  the  comic-opera-chalet  prettiness  of  ours, 
and  are  not  so  frequent.  The  road  is  not  so  smooth, 
the  cars  not  so  smooth-running  or  so  swift.  On  the 
other  hand  they  are  comfortably  cushioned,  and  they 
are  never  overcrowded.  The  line  is  at  times  above, 
at  times  below  the  houses,  and  at  times  on  a  level 
with  them,  alike  in  city  and  in  suburbs.  The  train 
whirled  out  of  thickly  built  districts,  past  the  backs 
of  the  old  houses,  into  outskirts  thinly  populated, 
with  new  houses  springing  up  without  order  or  con 
tinuity  among  the  meadows  and  vegetable-gardens,  and 
along  the  ready-made,  elm -planted  avenues,  where 
wooden  fences  divided  the  vacant  lots.  Every 
where  the  city  was  growing  out  over  the  country,  in 
blocks  and  detached  edifices  of  limestone,  sandstone, 
red  and  yellow  brick,  larger  or  smaller,  of  no  more 
uniformity  than  our  suburban  dwellings,  but  never  of 
their  ugliness  or  lawless  offensiveness. 

In  an  effort  for  the  intimate  life  of  the  country 
March  went  two  successive  mornings  for  his  breakfast 
to  the  Cafe  Bauer,  which  has  some  admirable  wall- 
printings,  and  is  the  chief  cafe  on  Unter  den  Linden ; 
but  on  both  days  there  were  more  people  in  the  paint 
ings  than  out  of  them.  The  second  morning  the 
waiter  who  took  his  order  recognized  him  and  asked, 
"  Wie  gestern  ? "  and  from  this  he  argued  an  affec 
tionate  constancy  in  the  Berliners,  and  a  hospitable 
observance  of  the  tastes  of  strangers.  At  his  bankers, 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  487 

on  the  other  hand,  the  cashier  scrutinized  his  signa 
ture  and  remarked  that  it  did  not  look  like  the  signa 
ture  in  his  letter  of  credit,  and  then  he  inferred  a 
suspicious  mind  in  the  moneyed  classes  of  Prussia ; 
as  he  had  not  been  treated  with  such  unkind  doubt 
by  Hebrew  bankers  anywhere,  he  made  a  mental  note 
that  the  Jews  were  politer  than  the  Christians  in  Ger 
many.  In  starting  for  Potsdam  he  asked  a  traeger 
where  the  Potsdam  train  was  and  the  man  said,  "  Dat 
train  dare,"  and  in  coming  back  he  helped  a  fat  old 
lady  out  of  the  car,  and  she  thanked  him  in  English. 
From  these  incidents,  both  occurring  the  same  day  in 
the  same  place,  the  inference  of  a  widespread  knowl 
edge  of  our  language  in  all  classes  of  the  population 
was  inevitable. 

In  this  obvious  and  easy  manner  he  studied  con 
temporary  civilization  in  the  capital.  He  even  carried 
his  researches  farther,  and  went  one  rainy  afternoon 
to  an  exhibition  of  modern  pictures  in  a  pavilion  of 
the  Thiergarten,  where  from  the  small  attendance  he 
inferred  an  indifference  to  the  arts  which  he  would 
not  ascribe  to  the  weather.  One  evening  at  a  summer 
theatre  where  they  gave  the  pantomime  of  the  Pup- 
penfee  and  the  operetta  of  Hansel  und  Gretel,  he 
observed  that  the  greater  part  of  the  audience  was 
composed  of  nice  plain  young  girls  and  children,  and 
he  noted  that  there  was  no  sort  of  evening  dress  ;  from 
the  large  number  of  Americans  present  he  imagined 
a  numerous  colony  in  Berlin,  where  they  must  have 
an  instinctive  sense  of  their  co-nationality,  since  one 
of  them  in  the  stress  of  getting  his  hat  and  overcoat 


488          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

when  they  all  came  out,  confidently  addressed  him  in 
English.  But  he  took  stock  of  his  impressions  with 
his  wife,  and  they  seemed  to  him  so  few,  after  all, 
that  he  could  not  resist  a  painful  sense  of  isolation  in 
the  midst  of  the  environment. 

They  made  a  Sunday  excursion  to  the  Zoological 
Gardens  in  the  Thiergarten,  with  a  large  crowd  of  the 
lower  classes,  but  though  they  had  a  great  deal  of 
trouble  in  getting  there  by  the  various  kinds  of  horse- 
cars  and  electric  cars,  they  did  not  feel  that  they  had 
got  near  to  the  popular  life.  They  endeavored  for 
some  sense  of  Berlin  society  by  driving  home  in  a 
drosky,  and  on  the  way  they  passed  rows  of  beautiful 
houses,  in  French  and  Italian  taste,  fronting  the  deep, 
damp  green  park  from  the  Thiergartenstrasse,  in 
which  they  were  confident  cultivated  and  delightful 
people  lived ;  but  they  remained  to  the  last  with  noth 
ing  but  their  unsupported  conjecture. 


LXV. 

THEIR  excursion  to  Potsdam  was  the  cream  of  their 
sojourn  in  Berlin.  They  chose  for  it  the  first  fair 
morning,  and  they  ran  out  over  the  flat  sandy  plains 
surrounding  the  capital,  and  among  the  low  hills  sur 
rounding  Potsdam  before  it  actually  began  to  rain. 
They  wished  immediately  to  see  Sans  Souci  for  the 
great  Frederick's  sake,  and  they  drove  through  a  lively 
shower  to  the  palace,  where  they  waited  with  a  horde 
of  twenty-five  other  tourists  in  a  gusty  colonnade  be 
fore  they  were  led  through  Voltaire's  room  and  Fred 
erick's  death  chamber. 

The  French  philosopher  comes  before  the  Prussian 
prince  at  Sans  Souci  even  in  the  palatial  villa  which 
expresses  the  wilful  caprice  of  the  great  Frederick  as 
few  edifices  have  embodied  the  whims  or  tastes  of 
their  owners.  The  whole  affair  is  eighteenth-century 
French,  as  the  Germans  conceived  it.  The  gardened 
terrace  from  which  the  low,  one-story  building,  thickly 
crusted  with  baroque  sculptures,  looks  down  into  a 
many-colored  parterre,  was  luxuriantly  French,  and 
sentimentally  French  the  colonnaded  front  opening 


490  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

to  a  perspective  of  artificial  ruins,  with  broken  pillars 
lifting  a  conscious  fragment  of  architrave  against  the 
sky.  Within,  all  again  was  French  in  the  design,  the 
decoration  and  the  furnishing.  At  that  time  there 
was  in  fact  no  other  taste,  and  Frederick,  who  despised 
and  disused  his  native  tongue,  was  resolved  upon 
French  taste  even  in  his  intimate  companionship.  The 
droll  story  of  his  coquetry  with  the  terrible  free  spirit 
which  he  got  from  France  to  be  his  guest  is  vividly 
reanimated  at  Sans  Souci,  where  one  breathes  the  very 
air  in  which  the  strangely  assorted  companions  lived, 
and  in  which  they  parted  so  soon  to  pursue  each  other 
with  brutal  annoyance  on  one  side,  and  with  merciless 
mockery  on  the  other.  Voltaire  was  long  ago  re 
venged  upon  his  host  for  all  the  indignities  he  suffered 
from  him  in  their  comedy ;  he  left  deeply  graven  upon 
Frederick's  fame  the  trace  of  those  lacerating  talons 
which  he  could  strike  to  the  quick ;  and  it  is  the  sin 
gular  effect  of  this  scene  of  their  brief  friendship  that 
one  feels  there  the  pre-eminence  of  the  wit  in  what 
ever  was  most  important  to  mankind. 

The  rain  had  lifted  a  little  and  the  sun  shone  out 
on  the  bloom  of  the  lovely  parterre  where  the  Marches 
profited  by  a  smiling  moment  to  wander  among  the 
statues  and  the  roses  heavy  with  the  shower.  Then 
they  walked  back  to  their  carriage  and  drove  to  the 
New  Palace,  which  expresses  in  differing  architectural 
terms  the  same  subjection  to  an  alien  ideal  of  beauty. 
It  is  thronged  without  by  delightfully  preposterous 
rococco  statues,  and  within  it  is  rich  in  all  those  curi 
osities  and  memorials  of  royalty  with  which  palaces 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  491 

so  well  know  how  to  fatigue  the  flesh  and  spirit  of 
their  visitors. 

The  Marches  escaped  from  it  all  with  sighs  and 
groans  of  relief,  and  before  they  drove  off  to  see  the 
great  fountain  of  the  Orangeries,  they  dedicated  a 
moment  of  pathos  to  the  Temple  of  Friendship  which 
Frederick  built  in  memory  of  unhappy  Wilhelmina 
of  Beyrouth,  the  sister  he  loved  in  the  common  sorrow 
of  their  wretched  home,  and  neglected  when  he  came 
to  his  kingdom.  It  is  beautiful  in  its  rococco  way, 
swept  up  to  on  its  terrace  by  most  noble  staircases, 
and  swaggered  over  by  baroque  allegories  of  all  sorts. 
Everywhere  the  statues  outnumbered  the  visitors,  who 
may  have  been  kept  away  by  the  rain;  the  statues 
naturally  did  not  mind  it. 

Sometime  in  the  midst  of  their  sight-seeing  the 
Marches  had  dinner  in  a  mildewed  restaurant,  where 
a  compatriotic  accent  caught  their  ear  in  a  voice  say 
ing  to  the  waiter,  "  We  are  in  a  hurry."  They  looked 
round  and  saw  that  it  proceeded  from  the  pretty  nose 
of  a  young  American  girl,  who  sat  with  a  party  of 
young  American  girls  at  a  neighboring  table.  Then 
they  perceived  that  all  the  people  in  that  restaurant 
were  Americans,  mostly  young  girls,  who  all  looked 
as  if  they  were  in  a  hurry.  But  neither  their  beauty 
nor  their  impatience  had  the  least  effect  with  the 
waiter,  who  prolonged  the  dinner  at  his  pleasure,  and 
alarmed  the  Marches  with  the  misgiving  that  they 
should  not  have  time  for  the  final  palace  on  their  list. 

This  was  the  palace  where  the  father  of  Frederick, 
the  mad  old  Frederick  William,  brought  up  his  chil- 


492  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

dren  with  that  severity  which  Solomon  urged  but 
probably  did  not  practise.  It  is  a  vast  place,  but  they 
had  time  for  it  all,  though  the  custodian  made  the 
most  of  them  as  the  latest  comers  of  the  day,  and  led 
them  through  it  with  a  prolixity  as  great  as  their 
waiter's.  He  was  a  most  friendly  custodian,  and  when 
he  found  that  they  had  some  little  notion  of  what 
they  wanted  to  see,  he  mixed  zeal  with  his  patronage, 
and  in  a  manner  made  them  his  honored  guests.  They 
saw  everything  but  the  doorway  where  the  faithful 
royal  father  used  to  lie  in  wait  for  his  children  and 
beat  them,  princes  and  princesses  alike,  with  his 
knobby  cane  as  they  came  through.  They  might 
have  seen  this  doorway  without  knowing  it ;  but  from 
the  window  overlooking  the  parade-ground  where  his 
family  watched  the  manoeuvres  of  his  gigantic  grena 
diers,  they  made  sure  of  just  such  puddles  as  Freder 
ick  William  forced  his  family  to  sit  with  their  feet  in, 
while  they  dined  al  fresco  on  pork  and  cabbage;  and 
they  visited  the  room  of  the  Smoking  Parliament 
where  he  ruled  his  convives  with  a  rod  of  iron,  and 
made  them  the  victims  of  his  bad  jokes.  The  meas 
uring-board  against  which  he  took  the  stature  of  his* 
tall  grenadiers  is  there,  and  one  n*>m  is  devoted  to 
those  masterpieces  which  he  used  to  paint  in  the  ago 
nies  of  gout.  His  chef-iTttuvre  contains  a  figure  with 
two  left  feet,  and  there  seemed  no  reason  why  it  might 
not  have  had  three.  In  another  room  is  a  small  statue 
of  Carlyle,  who  did  so  much  to  rehabilitate  the  house 
which  the  daughter  of  it,  Wilhelmina,  did  so  much  to 
demolish  in  the  regard  of  men. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  493 

The  palace  is  now  mostly  kept  for  guests,  and  there 
is  a  chamber  where  Napoleon  slept,  which  is  not  likely 
to  be  occupied  soon  by  any  other  self-invited  guest 
of  his  nation.  It  is  perhaps  to  keep  the  princes  of 
Europe  humble  that  hardly  a  palace  on  the  Continent 
is  without  the  chamber  of  this  adventurer,  who,  till 
•ped  to  be  like  them,  was  easily  their  master. 
Another  democracy  had  here  recorded  its  invasion  in 
the  American  stoves  which  the  custodian  pointed  out 
in  the  corridor  when  Mrs.  March,  with  as  little  delay 
as  possible,  had  proclaimed  their  country.  The  custo 
dian  professed  an  added  respect  for  them  from  the 
fact,  and  if  he  did  not  feel  it,  no  doubt  he  merited  the 
drink  money  which  they  lavished  on  him  at  parting. 

Their  driver  also  was  a  congenial  spirit,  and  when 
he  let  them  out  of  his  carriage  at  the  station,  he  ex 
cused  the  rainy  day  to  them.  He  was  a  merry  fellow 
beyond  the  wont  of  his  nation,  and  he  laughed  at  the 
bad  weather,  as  if  it  had  been  a  good  joke  on  them. 
His  gayety,  and  the  red  sunset  light,  which  shone  on 
the  stems  of  the  pines  on  the  way  back  to  Berlin, 
contributed  to  the  content  in  which  they  reviewed 
their  visit  to  Potsdam.  They  agreed  that  the  place 
was  perfectly  charming,  and  that  it  was  incomparably 
expressive  of  kingly  will  and  pride.  These  had  done 
there  on  the  grand  scale  what  all  the  German  princes 
and  princelings  had  tried  to  do  in  imitation  and  emu 
lation  of  French  splendor.  In  Potsdam  the  grandeur 
was  not  a  historical  growth  as  at  Versailles,  but  was 
the  effect  of  family  genius,  in  which  there  was  often 
the  curious  fascination  of  insanity. 


494:          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

They  felt  this  strongly  again  amidst  the  futile  mon 
uments  of  the  Hohenzollern  Museum,  in  Berlin,  where 
all  the  portraits,  effigies,  personal  belongings  and  me 
morials  of  that  gifted,  eccentric  race  are  gathered  and 
historically  disposed.  The  princes  of  the  mighty  line 
who  stand  out  from  the  rest  are  Frederick  the  Great 
and  his  infuriate  father;  and  in  the  waxen  likeness  of 
the  son,  a  small  thin  figure,  terribly  spry,  and  a  face 
pitilessly  alert,  appears  something  of  the  madness 
which  showed  in  the  life  of  the  sire. 

They  went  through  many  rooms  in  which  the  me 
morials  of  the  kings  and  queens,  the  emperors  and 
empresses  were  carefully  ordered,  and  felt  no  kind 
ness  except  before  the  relics  relating  to  the  Emperor 
Frederick  and  his  mother.  In  the  presence  of  the 
greatest  of  the  dynasty  they  experienced  a  kind  of 
terror  which  March  expressed,  when  they  were  safely 
away,  in  the  confession  of  his  joy  that  those  people 
were  dead. 


LXVI. 

THE  rough  weather  which  made  Berlin  almost  un 
inhabitable  to  Mrs.  March  had  such  an  effect  with 
General  Triscoe  at  Weimar  that  under  the  orders  of 
an  English-speaking  doctor  he  retreated  from  it  alto 
gether  and  went  to  bed.  Here  he  escaped  the  bron 
chitis  which  had  attacked  him,  and  his  convalesence 
left  him  so  little  to  complain  of  that  he  could  not 
always  keep  his  temper.  In  the  absence  of  actual 
offence,  either  from  his  daughter  or  from  Burnamy, 
his  sense  of  injury  took  a  retroactive  form  ;  it  centred 
first  in  Stoller  and  the  twins ;  then  it  diverged  toward 
Rose  Adding,  his  mother  and  Kenby,  and  finally  in 
volved  the  Marches  in  the  same  measure  of  inculpar 
tion ;  for  they  had  each  and  all  had  part,  directly  or 
indirectly,  in  the  chances  that  brought  on  his  cold. 

He  owed  to  Burnamy  the  comfort  of  the  best  room 
in  the  hotel,  and  he  was  constantly  dependent  upon 
his  kindness ;  but  he  made  it  evident  that  he  did  not 
over-value  Burnamy's  sacrifice  and  devotion,  and  that 
it  was  not  an  unmixed  pleasure,  however  great  a  con 
venience,  to  have  him  about.  In  giving  up  his  room, 
Burnamy  had  proposed  going  out  of  the  hotel  alto- 


496  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

gether ;  but  General  Triscoe  heard  of  this  with  almost 
as  great  vexation  as  he  had  accepted  the  room.  He 
besought  him  not  to  go,  but  so  ungraciously  that  his 
daughter  was  ashamed,  and  tried  to  atone  for  his 
manner  by  the  kindness  of  her  own. 

Perhaps  General  Triscoe  would  not  have  been  with 
out  excuse  if  he  were  not  eager  to  have  her  share  with 
destitute  merit  the  fortune  which  she  had  hitherto 
shared  only  with  him.  He  was  old,  and  certain  lux 
uries  had  become  habits  if  not  necessaries  with  him. 
Of  course  he  did  not  say  this  to  himself ;  and  still  less 
did  he  say  it  to  her.  But  he  let  her  see  that  he  did 
not  enjoy  the  chance  which  had  thrown  them  again 
in  such  close  relations  with  Burnamy,  and  he  did  not 
hide  his  belief  that  the  Marches  were  somehow  to 
blame  for  it.  This  made  it  impossible  for  her  to 
write  at  once  to  Mrs.  March  as  she  had  promised ;  but 
she  was  determined  that  it  should  not  make  her  un 
just  to  Burnamy.  She  would  not  avoid  him;  she 
would  not  let  anything  that  had  happened  keep  her 
from  showing  that  she  felt  his  kindness  and  was  glad 
of  his  help. 

Of  course  they  knew  no  one  else  in  Weimar,  and 
his  presence  merely  as  a  fellow-countryman  would 
have  been  precious.  He  got  them  a  doctor,  against 
General  Triscoe's  will ;  he  went  for  his  medicines ;  he 
lent  him  books  and  papers;  he  sat  with  him  and  tried 
to  amuse  him.  But  with  the  girl  he  attempted  no 
return  to  the  situation  at  Carlsbad ;  there  is  nothing 
like  the  delicate  pride  of  a  young  man  who  resolves 
to  forego  unfair  advantage  in  love. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  497 

The  day  after  their  arrival,  when  her  father  was 
making  up  for  the  sleep  he  had  lost  by  night,  she 
found  herself  alone  in  the  little  reading-room  of  the 
hotel  with  Burnamy  for  the  first  time,  and  she  said: 
"  I  suppose  you  must  have  been  all  over  Weimar  by 
this  time." 

"  Well,  Pve  been  here,  off  and  on,  almost  a  month. 
It's  an  interesting  place.  There's  a  good  deal  of  the 
old  literary  quality  left." 

"  And  you  enjoy  that !  I  saw  " — she  added  this 
with  a  little  unnecessary  flush — "  your  poem  in  the 
paper  you  lent  papa." 

"  I  suppose  I  ought  to  have  kept  that  back.  But 
I  couldn't."  He  laughed,  and  she  said : 

"  You  must  find  a  great  deal  of  inspiration  in  such 
a  literary  place." 

"  It  isn't  lying  about  loose,  exactly."  Even  in  the 
serious  and  perplexing  situation  in  which  he  found 
himself  he  could  not  help  being  amused  with  her  un- 
literary  notions  of  literature,  her  conventional  and 
commonplace  conceptions  of  it.  They  had  their  value 
with  him  as  those  of  a  more  fashionable  world  than 
his  own,  which  he  believed  was  somehow  a  greater 
world.  At  the  same  time  he  believed  that  she  was 
now  interposing  them  between  the  present  and  the 
past,  and  forbidding  with  them  any  return  to  the 
mood  of  their  last  meeting  in  Carlsbad.  He  looked 
at  her  ladylike  composure  and  unconsciousness,  and 
wondered  if  she  could  be  the  same  person  and  he  the 
same  person  as  they  who  lost  themselves  in  the  crowd 
that  night  and  heard  and  said  words  palpitant  with 


498  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

fate.  Perhaps  there  had  been  no  such  words;  per 
haps  it  was  all  a  hallucination.  He  must  leave  her  to 
recognize  that  it  was  reality ;  till  she  did  so,  he  felt 
bitterly  that  there  was  nothing  for  him  but  submission 
and  patience ;  if  she  never  did  so,  there  was  nothing 
for  him  but  acquiescence. 

In  this  talk  and  in  the  talks  they  had  afterwards 
she  seemed  willing  enough  to  speak  of  what  had  hap 
pened  since:  of  coming  on  to  Wiirzburg  with  the 
Addings  and  of  finding  the  Marches  there ;  of  Rose's 
collapse,  and  of  his  mother's  flight  seaward  with  him 
in  the  care  of  Kenby,  who  was  so  fortunately  going 
to  Holland,  too.  He  on  his  side  told  her  of  going  to 
Wiirzburg  for  the  manoeuvres,  and  they  agreed  that 
it  was  very  strange  they  had  not  met. 

She  did  not  try  to  keep  their  relations  from  taking 
the  domestic  character  which  was  inevitable,  and  it 
seemed  to  him  that  this  in  itself  was  significant  of  a 
determination  on  her  part  that  was  fatal  to  his  hopes. 
With  a  lover's  indefinite  power  of  blinding  himself  to 
what  is  before  his  eyes,  he  believed  that  if  she  had 
been  more  diffident  of  him,  more  uneasy  in  his  pres 
ence,  he  should  have  had  more  courage ;  but  for  her 
to  breakfast  unafraid  with  him,  to  meet  him  at  lunch 
and  dinner  in  the  little  dining-room  where  they  were 
often  the  only  guests,  and  always  the  only  English- 
speaking  guests,  was  nothing  less  than  prohibitive. 

In  the  hotel  service  there  was  one  of  those  men 
who  are  porters  in  this  world,  but  will  be  angels  in 
the  next,  unless  the  perfect  goodness  of  their  looks, 
the  constant  kindness  of  their  acts,  belies  them.  The 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  499 

Marches  had  known  and  loved  the  man  in  their  brief 
stay,  and  he  had  been  the  fast  friend  of  Burnamy 
from  the  moment  they  first  saw  each  other  at  the  sta 
tion.  He  had  tenderly  taken  possession  of  General 
Triscoe  on  his  arrival,  and  had  constituted  himself 
the  nurse  and  keeper  of  the  irascible  invalid,  in  the 
intervals  of  going  to  the  trains,  with  a  zeal  that  often 
relieved  his  daughter  and  Burnamy.  The  general  in 
fact  preferred  him  to  either,  and  a  tacit  custom  grew 
up  by  which  when  August  knocked  at  his  door,  and 
offered  himself  in  his  few  words  of  serviceable  Eng 
lish,  that  one  of  them  who  happened  to  be  sitting 
with  the  general  gave  way,  and  left  him  in  charge. 
The  retiring  watcher  was  then  apt  to  encounter  the 
other  watcher  on  the  stairs,  or  in  the  reading-room,  or 
in  the  tiny,  white-pebbled  door-yard  at  a  little  table 
in  the  shade  of  the  wooden-tubbed  evergreens.  From 
the  habit  of  doing  this  they  one  day  suddenly  formed 
the  habit  of  going  across  the  street  to  that  gardened 
hollow  before  and  below  the  Grand-Ducal  Museum. 
There  was  here  a  bench  in  the  shelter  of  some  late- 
flowering  bush  which  the  few  other  frequenters  of 
the  place  soon  recognized  as  belonging  to  the  young 
strangers,  so  that  they  would  silently  rise  and  leave 
it  to  them  when  they  saw  them  coming.  Apparently 
they  yielded  not  only  to  their  right,  but  to  a  certain 
authority  which  resides  in  lovers,  and  which  all  other 
men,  and  especially  all  other  women,  like  to  acknowl 
edge  and  respect. 

In  the  absence  of  any  civic  documents  bearing  upon 
tiie  affair  it  is  difficult  to  establish  the  fact  that  this 


500          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

was  the  character  in  which  Agatha  and  Burnamy  were 
commonly  regarded  by  the  inhabitants  of  Weimar. 
But  whatever  their  own  notion  of  their  relation  was, 
if  it  was  not  that  of  a  Braut  and  a  Brautigam,  the 
people  of  Weimar  would  have  been  puzzled  to  say 
what  it  was.  It  was  known  that  the  gracious  young 
lady's  father,  who  would  naturally  have  accompanied 
them,  was  sick,  and  in  the  fact  that  they  were  Amer 
icans  much  extenuation  was  found  for  whatever  was 
phenomenal  in  their  unencumbered  enjoyment  of  each 
other's  society. 

If  their  free  American  association  was  indistin- 
guishably  like  the  peasant  informality  which  General 
Triscoe  despised  in  the  relations  of  Kenby  and  Mrs. 
Adding,  it  is  to  be  said  in  his  excuse  that  he  could 
not  be  fully  cognizant  of  it,  in  the  circumstances,  and 
so  could  do  nothing  to  prevent  it.  His  pessimism 
extended  to  his  health;  from  the  first  he  believed 
himself  worse  than  the  doctor  thought  him,  and  he 
would  have  had  some  other  physician  if  he  had  not 
found  consolation  in  their  difference  of  opinion  and 
the  consequent  contempt  which  he  was  enabled  to 
cherish  for  the  doctor  in  view  of  the  man's  complete 
ignorance  of  the  case.  In  proof  of  his  own  better 
understanding  of  it,  he  remained  in  bed  some  time 
after  the  doctor  said  he  might  get  up. 

Nearly  ten  days  had  passed  before  he  left  his  room, 
and  it  was  not  till  then  that  he  clearly  saw  how  far 
affairs  had  gone  with  his  daughter  and  Burnamy, 
though  even  then  his  observance  seemed  to  have  an 
ticipated  theirs.  He  found  them  in  a  quiet  accept- 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  501 

ance  of  the  fortune  which  had  brought  them  together, 
so  contented  that  they  appeared  to  ask  nothing  more 
of  it.  The  divine  patience  and  confidence  of  their 
youth  might  sometimes  have  had  almost  the  effect  of 
indifference  to  a  witness  who  had  seen  its  evolution 
from  the  moods  of  the  first  few  days  of  their  reunion 
in  Weimar.  To  General  Triscoe,  however,  it  looked 
like  an  understanding  which  had  been  made  without 
reference  to  his  wishes,  and  had  not  been  directly 
brought  to  his  knowledge. 

"  Agatha,"  he  said,  after  due  note  of  a  gay  contest 
between  her  and  Burnamy  over  the  pleasure  and  priv 
ilege  of  ordering  his  supper  sent  to  his  room  when  he 
had  gone  back  to  it  from  his  first  afternoon  in  the 
open  air,  "  how  long  is  that  young  man  going  to  stay 
in  Weimar  ? " 

"  Why,  I  don't  know  !  "  she  answered,  startled  from 
her  work  of  beating  the  sofa  pillows  into  shape,  and 
pausing  with  one  of  them  in  her  hand.  "  I  never 
asked  him."  She  looked  down  candidly  into  his 
face  where  he  sat  in  an  easy-chair  waiting  for  her  ar 
rangement  of  the  sofa.  "  What  makes  you  ask  ?  " 

He  answered  with  another  question.  "Does  he 
know  that  we  had  thought  of  staying  here?" 

"  Why,  we've  always  talked  of  that,  haven't  we  ? 
Yes,  he  knows  it.  Didn't  you  want  him  to  know  it, 
papa?  You  ought  to  have  begun  on  the  ship,  then. 
Of  course  I've  asked  him  what  sort  of  place  it  was. 
I'm  sorry  if  you  didn't  want  me  to." 

"  Have  I  said  that  ?  It's  perfectly  easy  to  push  on 
to  Paris.  Unless—" 


502  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  Unless  what  ? "  Agatha  dropped  the  pillow,  and 
listened  respectfully.  But  in  spite  of  her  filial  atti 
tude  she  could  not  keep  her  youth  and  strength  and 
courage  from  quelling  the  forces  of  the  elderly  man. 

He  said  querulously,  "  I  don't  see  why  you  take 
that  tone  with  me.  You  certainly  know  what  I  mean. 
But  if  you  don't  care  to  deal  openly  with  me,  I  won't 
ask  you."  He  dropped  his  eyes  from  her  face,  and 
at  the  same  time  a  deep  blush  began  to  tinge  it, 
growing  up  from  her  neck  to  her  forehead.  "  You 
must  know — you're  not  a  child,"  he  continued,  still 
with  averted  eyes,  "  that  this  sort  of  thing  can't  go 
on.  It  must  be  something  else,  or  it  mustn't  be  any 
thing  at  all.  I  don't  ask  you  for  your  confidence,  and 
you  know  that  I've  never  sought  to  control  you." 

This  was  not  the  least  true,  but  Agatha  answered, 
either  absently  or  provisionally,  "  No." 

"And  I  don't  seek  to  do  so  now.  If  you  have 
nothing  that  you  wish  to  tell  me — " 

He  waited,  and  after  what  seemed  a  long  time,  she 
asked  as  if  she  had  not  heard  him,  "  Will  you  lie 
down  a  little  before  your  supper,  papa  ? " 

"  I  will  lie  down  when  I  feel  like  it,"  he  answered. 
"  Send  August  with  the  supper ;  he  can  look  after 
me." 

His  resentful  tone,  even  more  than  his  words,  dis 
missed  her,  but  she  left  him  without  apparent  griev 
ance,  saying  quietly,  "  I  will  send  August." 


LXVII. 

AGATHA  did  not  come  down  to  supper  with  Bur 
namy,  She  asked  August,  when  she  gave  him  her 
father's  order,  to  have  a  cup  of  tea  sent  to  her  room, 
where,  when  it  came,  she  remained  thinking  so  long 
that  it  was  rather  tepid  by  the  time  she  drank  it. 
Then  she  went  to  her  window,  and  looked  out,  first 
above  and  next  below.  Above,  the  moon  was  hang 
ing  over  the  gardened  hollow  before  the  Museum  with 
the  airy  lightness  of  an  American  moon.  Below  was 
Burnamy  behind  the  tubbed  evergreens,  sitting  tilted 
in  his  chair  against  the  house  wall,  with  the  spark  of 
his  cigar  fainting  and  flashing  like  an  American  fire 
fly.  Agatha  went  down  to  the  door,  after  a  little  de 
lay,  and  seemed  surprised  to  find  him  there;  at  least 
she  said,  "  Oh  !  "  in  a  tone  of  surprise. 

Burnamy  stood  up,  and  answered,  "  Nice  night." 

"  Beautiful !  "  she  breathed.  "  I  didn't  suppose 
the  sky  in  Germany  could  ever  be  so  clear." 

"  It  seems  to  be  doing  its  best." 

"  The  flowers  over  there  look  like  ghosts  in  the 
light,"  she  said  dreamily. 


504  THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  They're  not.  Don't  you  want  to  get  your  hat  and 
wrap,  and  go  over  and  expose  the  fraud  ? " 

"  Oh,"  she  answered,  as  if  it  were  merely  a  ques 
tion  of  the  hat  and  wrap,  "  I  have  them." 

They  sauntered  through  the  garden  walks  for  a 
while,  long  enough  to  have  ascertained  that  there  was 
not  a  veridical  phantom  among  the  flowers,  if  they 
had  been  looking,  and  then  when  they  came  to  their 
accustomed  seat,  they  sat  down,  and  she  said,  "I 
don't  know  that  I've  seen  the  moon  so  clear  since  we 
left  Carlsbad."  At  the  last  word  his  heart  gave  a 
jump  that  seemed  to  lodge  it  in  his  throat  and  kept 
him  from  speaking,  so  that  she  could  resume  without 
interruption,  "  I've  got  something  of  yours,  that  you 
left  at  the  Posthof.  The  girl  that  broke  the  dishes 
found  it,  and  Lili  gave  it  to  Mrs.  March  for  you." 
This  did  not  account  for  Agatha's  having  the  thing, 
whatever  it  was;  but  when  she  took  a  handkerchief 
from  her  belt,  and  put  out  her  hand  with  it  toward  him, 
he  seemed  to  find  that  her  having  it  had  necessarily 
followed.  He  tried  to  take  it  from  her,  but  his  own 
hand  trembled  so  that  it  clung  to  hers,  and  he  gasped, 
"Can't  you  say  now,  what  you  wouldn't  say  then?" 

The  logical  sequence  was  no  more  obvious  than  be 
fore  ;  but  she  apparently  felt  it  in  her  turn  as  he  had 
felt  it  in  his.  She  whispered  back,  "  Yes,"  and  then 
she  could  not  get  out  anything  more  till  she  entreated 
in  a  half-stifled  voice,  "  Oh,  don't !  " 

"  No,  no  !  "  he  panted.  "  I  won't — 1  oughtn't  to 
have  done  it — I  beg  your  pardon — I  oughtn't  to  have 
spoken, — even — I — " 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  505 

She  returned  in  a  far  less  breathless  and  tremulous 
fashion,  but  still  between  laughing  and  crying,  "  I 
meant  to  make  you.  And  now,  if  you're  ever  sorry, 
or  I'm  ever  too  topping  about  anything,  you  can  be 
perfectly  free  to  say  that  you'd  never  have  spoken  if 
you  hadn't  seen  that  I  wanted  you  to." 

"But  I  didn't  see  any  such  thing,"  he  protested. 
"  I  spoke  because  I  couldn't  help  it  any  longer." 

She  laughed  triumphantly.  "  Of  course  you  think 
so !  And  that  shows  that  you  are  only  a  man  after 
all ;  in  spite  of  your  finessing.  But  I  am  going  to 
have  the  credit  of  it.  I  knew  that  you  were  holding 
back  because  you  were  too  proud,  or  thought  you 
hadn't  the  right,  or  something.  Weren't  you  ? "  She 
startled  him  with  the  sudden  vehemence  of  her  chal 
lenge  :  "  If  you  pretend  that  you  weren't  I  shall  never 
forgive  you ! " 

"  But  I  was  !     Of  course  I  was.     I  was  afraid — " 

"  Isn't  that  what  I  said  ? "  She  triumphed  over 
him  with  another  laugh,  and  cowered  a  little  closer  to 
him,  if  that  could  be. 

They  were  standing,  without  knowing  how  they 
had  got  to  their  feet;  arid  now  without  any  purpose 
of  the  kind,  they  began  to  stroll  again  among  the  gar 
den  paths,  and  to  ask  and  to  answer  questions,  which 
touched  every  point  of  their  common  history,  and  yet 
left  it  a  mine  of  inexhaustible  knowledge  for  all  future 
time.  Out  of  the  sweet  and  dear  delight  of  this  en- 
cyclopedian  reserve  two  or  three  facts  appeared  with 
a  present  distinctness.  One  of  these  was  that  Bur- 
namy  had  regarded  her  refusal  to  be  definite  at  Carls- 


506  THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

bad  as  definite  refusal,  and  had  meant  never  to  see 
her  again,  and  certainly  never  to  speak  again  of  love 
to  her.  Another  point  was  that  she  had  not  resented 
his  coming  back  that  last  night,  but  had  been  proud 
and  happy  in  it  as  proof  of  his  love,  and  had  always 
meant  somehow  to  let  him  know  that  she  was  touched 
by  his  trusting  her  enough  to  come  back  while  he  was 
still  under  that  cloud  with  Mr.  Stoller.  With  further 
logic,  purely  of  the  heart,  she  acquitted  him  altogeth 
er  of  wrong  in  that  affair,  and  alleged  in  proof,  what 
Mr.  Stoller  had  said  of  it  to  Mr.  March.  Burnamy 
owned  that  he  knew  what  Stoller  had  said,  but  even 
in  his  present  condition  he  could  not  accept  fully  her 
reading  of  that  obscure  passage  of  his  life.  He  pre 
ferred  to  put  the  question  by,  and  perhaps  neither  of 
them  cared  anything  about  it  except  as  it  related  to 
the  fact  that  they  were  now  each  other's  forever. 

They  agreed  that  they  must  write  to  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
March  at  once ;  or  at  least,  Agatha  said,  as  soon  as 
she  had  spoken  to  her  father.  At  her  mention  of  her 
father  she  was  aware  of  a  doubt,  a  fear,  in  Burnamy 
which  expressed  itself  by  scarcely  more  than  a  spirit 
ual  consciousness  from  his  arm  to  the  hands  which 
she  had  clasped  within  it.  "  He  has  always  appreci 
ated  you,"  she  said  courageously,  "  and  I  know  he 
will  see  it  in  the  right  light." 

She  probably  meant  no  more  than  to  affirm  her 
faith  in  her  own  ability  finally  to  bring  her  father  to 
a  just  mind  concerning  it ;  but  Burnamy  accepted  her 
assurance  with  buoyant  hopefulness,  and  said  he  would 
see  General  Triscoe  the  first  thing  in  the  morning. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  507 

"  No,  I  will  see  him,  "  she  said,  "  I  wish  to  see  him 
first;  he  will  expect  it  of  me.  We  had  better  go  in, 
now,"  she  added,  but  neither  made  any  motion  for 
the  present  to  do  so.  On  the  contrary,  they  walked 
in  the  other  direction,  and  it  was  an  hour  after  Agatha 
declared  their  duty  in  the  matter  before  they  tried  to 
fulfil  it. 

Then,  indeed,  after  they  returned  to  the  hotel,  she 
lost  no  time  in  going  to  her  father  beyond  that  which 
must  be  given  to  a  long  hand-pressure  under  the  fresco 
of  the  five  poets  on  the  stairs  landing,  where  her  ways 
and  Burnamy's  parted.  She  went  into  her  own  room, 
and  softly  opened  the  door  into  her  father's  and  list 
ened. 

"  Well  ?  "  he  said  in  a  sort  of  challenging  voice. 

"  Have  you  been  asleep  ? "  she  asked. 

"I've  just  blown  out  my  light.  What  has  kept 
you  ? " 

She  did  not  reply  categorically.  Standing  there  in 
the  sheltering  dark,  she  said,  "  Papa,  I  wasn't  very 
candid  with  you,  this  afternoon.  I  am  engaged  to 
Mr.  Burnamy." 

"  Light  the  candle,"  said  her  father.  "  Or  no,"  he 
added  before  she  could  do  so.  "  Is  it  quite  settled  ? " 

"  Quite,"  she  answered  in  a  voice  that  admitted  of 
no  doubt.  "That  is,  as  far  as  it  can  be,  without 
you." 

"  Don't  be  a  hypocrite,  Agatha,"  said  the  general. 
«'  And  let  me  try  to  get  to  sleep.  You  know  I  don't 
like  it,  and  you  know  I  can't  help  it.'' 

"Yes,"  the  girl  assented. 


508  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  Then  go  to  bed,"  said  the  general  concisely. 

Agatha  did  not  obey  her  father.  She  thought  she 
ought  to  kiss  him,  but  she  decided  that  she  had  better 
postpone  this ;  so  she  merely  gave  him  a  tender  good 
night,  to  which  he  made  no  response,  and  shut  herself 
into  her  own  room,  where  she  remainded  sitting  and 
staring  out  into  the  moonlight,  with  a  smile  that  never 
left  her  lips. 

When  the  moon  sank  below  the  horizon,  the  sky 
was  pale  with  the  coming  day,  but  before  it  was  fairly 
dawn,  she  saw  something  white,  not  much  greater 
than  some  moths,  moving  before  her  window.  She 
pulled  the  valves  open  and  found  it  a  bit  of  paper 
attached  to  a  thread  dangling  from  above.  She  broke 
it  loose  and  in  the  morning  twilight  she  read  the 
great  central  truth  of  the  universe : 

«  I  love  you.     L.  J.  B." 

She  wrote  under  the  tremendous  inspiration : 

"  So  do  I.     Don't  be  silly.     A.  T." 

She  fastened  the  paper  to  the  thread  again,  and 
gave  it  a  little  twitch.  She  waited  for  the  low  note 
of  laughter  which  did  not  fail  to  flutter  down  from 
above ;  then  she  threw  herself  upon  the  bed,  and  fell 
asleep. 

It  was  not  so  late  as  she  thought  when  she  woke, 
and  it  seemed,  at  breakfast,  that  Burnamy  had  been 
up  still  earlier.  Of  the  three  involved  in  the  anxiety 
of  the  night  before  General  Triscoe  was  still  respited 
from  it  by  sleep,  but  he  woke  much  more  haggard 
than  either  of  the  young  people.  They,  in  fact,  were 
not  at  all  haggard ;  the  worst  was  over,  if  bringing 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  509 

their  engagement  to  his  knowledge  was  the  worst ;  the 
formality  of  asking  his  consent  which  Burnamy  still 
had  to  go  through  was  unpleasant,  but  after  all  it  was 
a  formality.  Agatha  told  him  everything  that  had 
passed  between  herself  and  her  father,  and  if  it  had 
not  that  cordiality  on  his  part  which  they  could  have 
wished  it  was  certainly  not  hopelessly  discouraging. 
They  agreed  at  breakfast  that  Burnamy  had  better 
have  it  over  as  quickly  as  possible,  and  he  waited  only 
till  August  came  down  with  the  general's  tray  before 
going  up  to  his  room.  The  young  fellow  did  not  feel 
more  at  his  ease  than  the  elder  meant  he  should  in 
taking  the  chair  to  which  the  general  waved  him  from 
where  he  lay  in  bed ;  and  there  was  no  talk  wasted 
upon  the  weather  between  them. 

"  I  suppose  I  know  what  you  have  come  for,  Mr. 
Burnamy,"  said  General  Triscoe  in  a  tone  which  was 
rather  judicial  than  otherwise,  "  and  I  suppose  you 
know  why  you  have  come."  The  words  certainly 
opened  the  way  for  Burnamy,  but  he  hesitated  so  long 
to  take  it  that  the  general  had  abundant  time  to  add, 
"  I  don't  pretend  that  this  event  is  unexpected,  but  I 
should  like  to  know  what  reason  you  have  for  think 
ing  I  should  wish  you  to  marry  my  daughter.  I  take 
it  for  granted  that  you  are  attached  to  each  other,  and 
we  won't  waste  time  on  that  point.  Not  to  beat 
about  the  bush,  on  the  next  point,  let  me  ask  at  once 
what  your  means  of  supporting  her  are.  How  much 
did  you  earn  on  that  newspaper  in  Chicago  ? " 

"Fifteen  hundred  dollars,"  Burnamy  answered, 
promptly  enough. 


510  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  Did  you  earn  anything  more,  say  within  the  last 
year?" 

"  I  got  three  hundred  dollars  advance  copyright  for 
a  book  I  sold  to  a  publisher."  The  glory  had  not 
yet  faded  from  the  fact  in  Burnamy's  mind. 

"  Eighteen  hundred.  What  did  you  get  for  your 
poem  in  March's  book  ? " 

"  That's  a  very  trifling  matter :  fifteen  dollars." 

"  And  your  salary  as  private  secretary  to  that  man 
Stoller  ? " 

"  Thirty  dollars  a  week,  and  my  expenses.  But  I 
wouldn't  take  that,  General  Triscoe,"  said  Burnamy. 

General  Triscoe,  from  his  lit  de  justice,  passed  this 
point  in  silence.  "  Have  you  any  one  dependent  on 
vou  ? " 

"  My  mother;  I  take  care  of  my  mother,"  answered 
Burnamy,  proudly. 

"  Since  you  have  broken  with  Stoller,  what  are 
your  prospects  ? " 

"  I  have  none." 

"  Then  you  don't  expect  to  support  my  daughter ; 
you  expect  to  live  upon  her  means." 

"  I  expect  to  do  nothing  of  the  kind  !  "  cried  Bur 
namy.  "  I  should  be  ashamed — I  should  feel  dis 
graced — I  should — I  don't  ask  you — I  don't  ask  her 
till  I  have  the  means  to  support  her — " 

"  If  you  were  very  fortunate,"  continued  the  gen 
eral,  unmoved  by  the  young  fellow's  pain,  and  unper 
turbed  by  the  fact  that  he  had  himself  lived  upon  his 
wife's  means  as  long  as  she  lived,  and  then  upon  his 
daughter's,  "  if  you  went  back  to  Stoller — " 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  511 

"  I  wouldn't  go  back  to  him.  I  don't  say  he's 
knowingly  a  rascal,  but  he's  ignorantly  a  rascal,  and 
he  proposed  a  rascally  thing  to  me.  I  behaved  badly 
to  him,  and  I'd  give  anything  to  undo  the  wrong  I 
let  him  do  himself ;  but  I'll  never  go  back  to  him." 

"  If  you  went  back,  on  your  old  salary,"  the  gen 
eral  persisted  pitilessly,  "  you  would  be  very  fortunate 
if  you  brought  your  earnings  up  to  twenty-five  hun 
dred  a  year." 
«  Yes—" 

"  And  how  far  do  you  think  that  would  go  in  sup 
porting  my  daughter  on  the  scale  she  is  used  to  ?  I 
don't  speak  of  your  mother,  who  has  the  first  claim 
upon  you." 

Burnamy  sat  dumb  ;  and  his  head  which  he  had 
lifted  indignantly  when  the  question  was  of  Stoller, 
began  to  sink. 

The  general  went  on.  "  You  ask  me  to  give  you 
my  daughter  when  you  haven't  money  enough  to  keep 
her  in  gowns ;  you  ask  me  to  give  her  to  a  stranger — " 
"  Not  "quite  a  stranger,  General  Triscoe,"  Burnamy 
protested.  "You  have  known  me  for  three  months 
at  least,  and  any  one  who  knows  me  in  Chicago  will 
tell  you — " 

"  A  stranger,  and  worse  than  a  stranger,"  the  gen 
eral  continued,  so  pleased  with  the  logical  perfection 
of  his  position  that  he  almost  smiled,  and  certainly 
softened  toward  Burnamy.  "  It  isn't  a  question  of 
liking  you,  Mr.  Burnamy,  but  of  knowing  you ;  my 
daughter  likes  you ;  so  do  the  Marches ;  so  does  every 
body  who  has  met  you.  I  like  you  myself.  You've 


512  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

done  me  personally  a  thousand  kindnesses.  But  I 
know  very  little  of  you,  in  spite  of  our  three  months' 
acquaintance  ;  and  that  little  is —  But  you  shall 
judge  for  yourself !  You  were  in  the  confidential 
employ  of  a  man  who  trusted  you,  and  you  let  him 
betray  himself." 

"I  did.      I  don't  excuse  it.      The  thought  of  it 
burns  like  fire.     But  it  wasn't  done  maliciously ;  it 
wasn't  done  falsely  ;  it  was  done  inconsiderately ;  and 
when  it  was  done,  it    seemed    irrevocable.       But  rk^ 
wasn't ;  I  could  have  prevented,  I  could  have  stooped    /' 
the  mischief ;  and  I  didn't !    I  can  never  outlive  that." 

"  I  know,"  said  the  general  relentlessly,  "  that  you 
have  never  attempted  any  defence.  That  has  been  to 
your  credit  with  me.  It  inclined  me  to  overlook  your 
unwarranted  course  in  writing  to  my  daughter,  when 
you  told  her  you  would  never  see  her  again.  What 
did  you  expect  me  to  think,  after  that,  of  your  coming 
back  to  see  her  ?  Or  didn't  you  expect  me  to  know 
it?" 

"  I  expected  you  to  know  it ;  I  knew  she  would  tell 
you.  But  I  don't  excuse  that,  either.  It  was  acting 
a  lie  to  come  back.  All  I  can  say  is  that  I  had  to  see 
her  again  for  one  last  time." 

"  And  to  make  sure  that  it  was  to  be  the  last  time, 
you  offered  yourself  to  her." 

"  I  couldn't  help  doing  that." 

"  I  don't  say  you  could.  I  don't  judge  the  facts  at 
all.  I  leave  them  altogether  to  you ;  and  you  shall 
say  what  a  man  in  my  position  ought  to  say  to  such 
a  man  as  you  have  shown  yourself." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  513 

"No,  /  will  say."  The  door  into  the  adjoining 
room  was  flung  open,  and  Agatha  flashed  in  from  it. 

Her  father  looked  coldly  at  her  impassioned  face. 
"  Have  you  been  listening  ? "  he  asked. 

"  I  have  been  hearing — " 

"  Oh  !  "  As  nearly  as  a  man  could,  in  bed,  General 
Triscoe  shrugged. 

"  I  suppose  I  had  a  right  to  be  in  my  own  room. 
I  couldn't  help  hearing ;  and  I  was  perfectly  aston 
ished  at  you,  papa,  the  cruel  way  you  went  on,  after 
all  you've  said  about  Mr.  Stoller,  and  his  getting  no 
more  than  he  deserved." 

"That  doesn't  justify  me,"  Burnamy  began,  but 
she  cut  him  short  almost  as  severely  as  she  had  dealt 
with  her  father. 

"  Yes,  it  does !  It  justifies  you  perfectly  !  And 
his  wanting  you  to  falsify  the  whole  thing  afterwards, 
more  than  justifies  you." 

Neither  of  the  men  attempted  anything  in  reply  to 
her  casuistry ;  they  both  looked  equally  posed  by  it, 
for  different  reasons;  and  Agatha  went  on  as  vehe 
mently  as  before,  addressing  herself  now  to  one  and 
now  to  the  other. 

"And  besides,  if  it  didn't  justify  you,  what  you 
have  done  yourself  would  ;  and  your  never  denying  it, 
or  trying  to  excuse  it,  makes  it  the  same  as  if  you 
hadn't  done  it,  as  far  as  you  are  concerned ;  and  that 
is  all  I  care  for."  Burnamy  started,  as  if  with  the 
sense  of  having  heard  something  like  this  before,  and 
with  surprise  at  hearing  it  now ;  and  she  flushed  a 
little  as  she  added  tremulously,  "  And  I  should  never, 
Ga 


514          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

never  blame  you  for  it,  after  that ;  it's  only  trying  to 
wriggle  out  of  things  which  I  despise,  and  you've 
never  done  that.  And  he  simply  had  to  come  back," 
she  turned  to  her  father,  "  and  tell  me  himself  just 
how  it  was.  And  you  said  yourself,  papa — or  the 
same  as  said — that  he  had  no  right  to  suppose  I  was 
interested  in  his  affairs  unless  he — unless —  And  I 
should  never  have  forgiven  him,  if  he  hadn't  told  me 
then  that  he — that  he  had  come  back  because  he — 
felt  the  way  he  did.  I  consider  that  that  exonerated 
him  for  breaking  his  word,  completely.  If  he  hadn't 
broken  his  word  I  should  have  thought  he  had  acted 
very  cruelly  and — and  strangely.  And  ever  since 
then,  he  has  behaved  so  nobly,  so  honorably,  so  deli 
cately,  that  I  don't  believe  he  would  ever  have  said 
anything  again — if  I  hadn't  fairly  forced  him.  Yes  ! 
Yes,  I  did  ! "  she  cried  at  a  movement  of  remonstrance 
from  Burnamy.  "  And  I  shall  always  be  proud  of 
you  for  it."  Her  father  stared  steadfastly  at  her,  and 
he  only  lifted  his  eyebrows,  for  change  of  expression, 
when  she  went  over  to  where  Burnamy  stood,  and  put 
her  hand  in  his  with  a  certain  childlike  impetuosity. 
"  And  as  for  the  rest,"  she  declared,  "  everything  I 
have  is  his ;  just  as  everything  of  his  would  be  mine 
if  I  had  nothing.  Or  if  he  wishes  to  take  me  without 
anything,  then  he  can  have  me  so,  and  I  sha'n't  be 
afraid  but  we  can  get  along  somehow."  She  added, 
"  I  have  managed  without  a  maid,  ever  since  I  left 
home,  and  poverty  has  no  terrors  for  me  !  " 


LXVIII. 

GENERAL  TRISCOE  submitted  to  defeat  with  the 
patience  which  soldiers  learn.  He  did  not  submit 
amiably ;  that  would  have  been  out  of  character,  and 
perhaps  out  of  reason  ;  but  Burnamy  and  Agatha  were 
both  so  amiable  that  they  supplied  good-humor  for 
all.  They  flaunted  their  rapture  in  her  father's  face 
as  little  as  they  could,  but  he  may  have  found  their 
serene  satisfaction,  their  settled  confidence  in  their 
fate,  as  hard  to  bear  as  a  more  boisterous  happiness 
would  have  been. 

It  was  agreed  among  them  all  that  they  were  to 
return  soon  to  America,  and  Burnamy  was  to  find 
some  sort  of  literary  or  journalistic  employment  in 
New  York.  She  was  much  surer  than  he  that  this 
could  be  done  with  perfect  ease ;  but  they  were  of  an 
equal  mind  that  General  Triscoe  was  not  to  be  dis 
turbed  in  any  of  his  habits,  or  vexed  in  the  tenor  of 
his  living ;  and  until  Burnamy  was  at  least  self-sup 
porting  there  must  be  no  talk  of  their  being  married. 

The  talk  of  their  being  engaged  was  quite  enough 
for  the  time.  It  included  complete  and  minute  auto- 


516          THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

biographies  on  both  sides,  reciprocal  analyses  of 
character,  a  scientifically  exhaustive  comparison  of 
tastes,  ideas  and  opinions ;  a  profound  study  of  their 
respective  chins,  noses,  eyes,  hands,  heights,  com 
plexions,  moles  and  freckles,  with  some  account  of 
their  several  friends.  In  this  occupation,  which  was 
profitably  varied  by  the  confession  of  what  they  had 
each  thought  and  felt  and  dreamt  concerning  the 
other  at  every  instant  since  they  met,  they  passed 
rapidly  the  days  which  the  persistent  anxiety  of  Gen 
eral  Triscoe  interposed  before  the  date  of  their  leaving 
Weimar  for  Paris,  where  it  was  arranged  that  they 
should  spend  a  month  before  sailing  for  New  York. 
Burnamy  had  a  notion,  which  Agatha  approved,  of 
trying  for  something  there  on  the  New  York-Paris 
Chronicle  ;  and  if  he  got  it  they  might  not  go  home 
at  once.  His  gains  from  that  paper  had  eked  out  his 
copyright  from  his  book,  and  had  almost  paid  his 
expenses  in  getting  the  material  which  he  had  con 
tributed  to  it.  They  were  not  so  great,  however,  but 
that  his  gold  reserve  was  reduced  to  less  than  a  hun 
dred  dollars,  counting  the  silver  coinages  which  had 
remained  to  him  in  crossing  and  recrossing  frontiers. 
He  was  at  times  dimly  conscious  of  his  finances,  but 
he  buoyantly  disregarded  the  facts,  as  incompatible 
with  his  status  as  Agatha's  betrothed,  if  not  unworthy 
of  his  character  as  a  lover  in  the  abstract. 

The  afternoon  before  they  were  to  leave  Weimar, 
they  spent  mostly  in  the  garden  before  the  Grand- 
Ducal  Museum,  in  a  conference  so  important  that  when 
it  came  on  to  rain,  at  one  moment,  they  put  up  Bur- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.          517 

namy's  umbrella,  and  continued  to  sit  under  it  rather 
than  interrupt  the  proceedings  even  to  let  Agatha  go 
back  to  the  hotel  and  look  after  her  father's  packing. 
Her  own  had  been  finished  before  dinner,  so  as  to 
leave  her  the  whole  afternoon  for  their  conference, 
and  to  allow  her  father  to  remain  in  undisturbed  pos 
session  of  his  room  as  long  as  possible. 

What  chiefly  remained  to  be  put  into  the  general's 
trunk  were  his  coats  and  trousers,  hanging  in  the 
closet,  and  August  took  these  down,  and  carefully 
folded  and  packed  them.  Then,  to  make  sure  that 
nothing  had  been  forgotten,  Agatha  put  a  chair  into 
the  closet  when  she  came  in,  and  stood  on  it  to  exam 
ine  the  shelf  which  stretched  above  the  hooks. 

There  seemed  at  first  to  be  nothing  on  it,  and  then 
there  seemed  to  be  something  in  the  further  corner, 
which  when  it  was  tiptoed  for,  proved  to  be  a  bouquet 
of  flowers,  not  so  faded  as  to  seem  very  old ;  the  blue 
satin  ribbon  which  they  were  tied  up  with,  and  which 
hung  down  half  a  yard,  was  of  entire  freshness  except 
for  the  dust  of  the  shelf  where  it  had  lain. 

Agatha  backed  out  into  the  room  with  her  find  in 
her  hand,  and  examined  it  near  to,  and  then  at  arm's- 
length.  August  stood  by  with  a  pair  of  the  general's 
trousers  lying  across  his  outstretched  hands,  and  as 
Agatha  absently  looked  round  at  him,  she  caught  a 
light  of  intelligence  in  his  eyes  which  changed  her 
whole  psychological  relation  to  the  withered  bouquet. 
Till  then  it  had  been  a  lifeless,  meaningless  bunch  of 
flowers,  which  some  one,  for  no  motive,  had  tossed 
up  on  that  dusty  shelf  in  the  closet.  At  August's 


518  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

smile  it  became  something  else.  Still  she  asked 
lightly  enough,  "  Was  ist  dass,  August  ? " 

His  smile  deepened  and  broadened.  "  Fur  die  An- 
dere,"  he  explained. 

Agatha  demanded  in  English,  "  What  do  you  mean 
by  feardy  ondery  ?  " 

"  Oddaw  lehdy." 

"  Other  lady  ?  "  August  nodded,  rejoicing  in  his 
success,  and  Agatha  closed  the  door  into  her  own 
room,  where  the  general  had  been  put  for  the  time  so 
as  to  be  spared  the  annoyance  of  the  packing;  then 
she  sat  down  with  her  hands  in  her  lap,  and  the  bou 
quet  in  her  hands.  "  Now,  August,"  she  said  very 
calmly,  "  I  want  you  to  tell  me — ich  wiinsche  Sie  zu 
mir  sagen — what  other  lady — wass  andere  Dame — 
these  flowers  belonged  to — diese  Blumen  gehorte  zu. 
Verstehen  Sie  ? " 

August  nodded  brightly,  and  with  German  carefully 
adjusted  to  Agatha's  capacity,  and  with  now  and  then 
a  word  or  phrase  of  English,  he  conveyed  that  before 
she  and  her  Herr  Father  had  appeared,  there  had 
been  in  Weimar  another  American  Fraulein  with  her 
Frau  Mother ;  they  had  not  indeed  staid  in  that  hotel, 
but  had  several  times  supped  there  with  the  young 
Herr  Bornahmee,  who  was  occupying  that  room  be 
fore  her  Herr  Father.  The  young  Herr  had  been 
much  about  with  these  American  Damen,  driving  and 
walking  with  them,  and  sometimes  dining  or  supping 
with  them  at  their  hotel,  The  Elephant.  August  had 
sometimes  carried  notes  to  them  from  the  young  Herr, 
and  he  had  gone  for  the  bouquet  which  the  gracious 


THEIB    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  519 

Fraulein  was  holding,  on  the  morning  of  the  day  that 
the  American  Damen  left  by  the  train  for  Hanover. 

August  was  much  helped  and  encouraged  through 
out  by  the  friendly  intelligence  of  the  gracious  Frau 
lein,  who  smiled  radiantly  in  clearing  up  one  dim 
point  after  another,  and  who  now  and  then  supplied 
the  English  analogues  which  he  sought  in  his  effort 
to  render  his  German  more  luminous. 

At  the  end  she  returned  to  the  work  of  packing,  in 
which  she  directed  him,  and  sometimes  assisted  him 
with  her  own  hands,  having  put  the  bouquet  on  the 
mantel  to  leave  herself  free.  She  took  it  up  again 
and  carried  it  into  her  own  room,  when  she  went  with 
August  to  summon  her  father  back  to  his.  She  bade 
August  say  to  the  young  Herr,  if  he  saw  him,  that  she 
was  going  to  sup  with  her  father,  and  August  gave 
her  message  to  Burnamy,  whom  he  met  on  the  stairs 
coming  down  as  he  was  going  up  with  their  tray. 

Agatha  usually  supped  with  her  father,  but  that 
evening  Burnamy  was  less  able  than  usual  to  bear  her 
absence  in  the  hotel  dining-room,  and  he  went  up  to 
a  cafe  in  the  town  for  his  supper.  He  did  not  stay 
long,  and  when  he  returned  his  heart  gave  a  joyful 
lift  at  sight  of  Agatha  looking  out  from  her  balcony, 
as  if  she  were  looking  for  him.  He  made  her  a  gay 
flourishing  bow,  lifting  his  hat  high,  and  she  came 
down  to  meet  him  at  the  hotel  door.  She  had  her 
hat  on  and  jacket  over  one  arm  and  she  joined  him 
at  once  for  the  farewell  walk  he  proposed  in  what 
they  had  agreed  to  call  their  garden. 

She  moved  a  little  ahead  of  him,  and  when  they 


520  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

reached  the  place  where  they  always  sat,  she  shifted 
her  jacket  to  the  other  arm  and  uncovered  the  hand 
in  which  she  had  been  carrying  the  withered  bouquet. 
"  Here  is  something  I  found  in  your  closet,  when  I 
was  getting  papa's  things  out." 

"  Why,  what  is  it  ? "  he  asked  innocently,  as  he 
took  it  from  her. 

"  A  bouquet,  apparently,"  she  answered,  as  he  drew 
the  long  ribbons  through  his  fingers,  and  looked  at 
the  flowers  curiously,  with  his  head  aslant. 

"Where  did  you  get  it?" 

"  On  the  shelf." 

It  seemed  a  long  time  before  Burnamy  said  with  a 
long  sigh,  as  of  final  recollection,  "  Oh,  yes,"  and  then 
he  said  nothing;  and  they  did  not  sit  down,  but  stood 
looking  at  each  other. 

"  Was  it  something  you  got  for  me,  and  forgot  to 
give  me  ? "  she  asked  in  a  voice  which  would  not  have 
misled  a  woman,  but  which  did  its  work  with  the 
young  man. 

He  laughed  and  said,  "  Well,  hardly  !  The  general 
has  been  in  the  room  ever  since  you  came." 

"  Oh,  yes.  Then  perhaps  somebody  left  it  there 
before  you  had  the  room  ? " 

Burnamy  was  silent  again,  but  at  last  he  said,  "  No, 
I  flung  it  up  there ;  I  had  forgotten  all  about  it." 

"  And  you  wish  me  to  forget  about  it,  too  ? "  Aga 
tha  asked  in  a  gayety  of  tone  that  still  deceived  him. 

"  It  would  only  be  fair.  You  made  me"  he  re 
joined,  and  there  was  something  so  charming  in  his 
words  and  way,  that  she  would  have  been  glad  to  do  it. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  521 

But  she  governed  herself  against  the  temptation 
and  said,  "  Women  are  not  good  at  forgetting,  at 
least  till  they  know  what." 

"  Oh,  I'll  tell  you,  if  you  want  to  know,"  he  said 
with  a  laugh,  and  at  the  words  she  sank  provisionally 
in  their  accustomed  seat.  He  sat  down  beside  her, 
but  not  so  near  as  usual,  and  he  waited  so  long  before 
he  began  that  it  seemed  as  if  he  had  forgotten  again. 
"  Why,  it's  nothing.  Miss  Etkins  and  her  mother 
were  here  before  you  came,  and  this  is  a  bouquet  that 
I  meant  to  give  her  at  the  train  when  she  left.  But 
I  decided  I  wouldn't,  and  I  threw  it  onto  the  shelf  in 
the  closet." 

"  May  I  ask  why  you  thought  of  taking  a  bouquet 
to  her  at  the  train  ?  " 

"  Well,  she  and  her  mother —  I  had  been  with 
them  a  good  deal,  and  I  thought  it  would  be  civil." 

"  And  why  did  you  decide  not  to  be  civil  ? " 

"  I  didn't  want  it  to  look  like  more  than  civility." 

"  Were  they  here  long  ? " 

"  About  a  week.  They  left  just  after  the  Marches 
came." 

Agatha  seemed  not  to  heed  the  answer  she  had 
exacted.  She  sat  reclined  in  the  corner  of  the  seat, 
with  her  head  drooping.  After  an  interval  which  was 
long  to  Burnamy  she  began  to  pull  at  a  ring  on  the 
third  finger  of  her  left  hand,  absently,  as.  if  she  did 
not  know  what  she  was  doing ;  but  when  she  had  got 
it  off  she  held  it  towards  Burnamy  and  said  quietly, 
"  I  think  you  had  better  have  this  again,"  and  then 
she  rose  and  moved  slowly  and  weakly  away. 


522          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

He  had  taken  the  ring  mechanically  from  her,  and 
he  stood  a  moment  bewildered ;  then  he  pressed  after 
her.  "  Agatha,  do  you — you  don't  mean — " 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  without  looking  round  at  his  face, 
which  she  knew  was  close  to  her  shoulder.  "  It's 
over.  It  isn't  what  you've  done.  It's  what  you  are. 
I  believed  in  you,  in  spite  of  what  you  did  to  that 
man — and  your  coming  back  when  you  said  you 
wouldn't — and —  But  I  see  now  that  what  you  did 
was  you  ;  it  was  your  nature ;  and  I  can't  believe  in 
you  any  more." 

"  Agatha  !  "  he  implored.  "  You're  not  going  to  be 
so  unjust !  There  was  nothing  between  you  and  me 
when  that  girl  was  here !  I  had  a  right  to — " 

"  Not  if  you  really  cared  for  me  !  Do  you  think  / 
would  have  flirted  with  any  one  so  soon,  if  I  had  cared 
for  you  as  you  pretended  you  did  for  me  that  night 
in  Carlsbad?  Oh,  I  don't  say  you're  false.  But 
you're  fickle — " 

"  But  I'm  not  fickle  !  From  the  first  moment  I  saw 
you,  I  never  cared  for  any  one  but  you  ! " 

"  You  have  strange  ways  of  showing  your  devotion. 
Well,  say  you  are  not  fickle.  Say,  that  Tm  fickle.  I 
am.  I  have  changed  my  mind.  I  see  that  it  would 
never  do.  I  leave  you  free  to  follow  all  the  turning 
and  twisting  of  your  fancy."  She  spoke  rapidly,  al 
most  breathlessly,  and  she  gave  him  no  chance  to  get 
out  the  words  that  seemed  to  choke  him.  She  began 
to  run,  but  at  the  door  of  the  hotel  she  stopped  and 
waited  till  he  came  stupidly  up.  "I  have  a  favor  to 
ask,  Mr.  Burnamy.  I  beg  you  will  not  see  me  again, 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  523 

if  you  can  help  it  before  we  go  to-morrow.  My 
father  and  I  are  indebted  to  you  for  too  many  kind 
nesses,  and  you  mustn't  take  any  more  trouble  on  our 
account.  August  can  see  us  off  in  the  morning." 

She  nodded  quickly,  and  was  gone  in-doors  while 
he  was  yet  struggling  with  his  doubt  of  the  reality  of 
what  had  all  so  swiftly  happened. 

General  Triscoe  was  still  ignorant  of  any  change  in 
the  status  to  which  he  had  reconciled  himself  with  so 
much  difficulty,  when  he  came  down  to  get  into  the 
omnibus  for  the  train.  Till  then  he  had  been  too 
proud  to  ask  what  had  become  of  Burnamy,  though 
he  had  wondered,  but  now  he  looked  about  and  said 
impatiently,  "  I  hope  that  young  man  isn't  going  to 
keep  us  waiting." 

Agatha  was  pale  and  worn  with  sleeplessness,  but 
she  said  firmly,  "  He  isn't  going,  papa.  I  will  tell 
you  in  the  train.  August  will  see  to  the  tickets  and 
the  baggage." 

August  conspired  with  the  traeger  to  get  them  a 
first-class  compartment  to  themselves.  But  even  with 
the  advantages  of  this  seclusion  Agatha's  confidences 
to  her  father  were  not  full.  She  told  her  father  that 
her  engagement  was  broken  for  reasons  that  did  not 
mean  anything  very  wrong  in  Mr.  Burnamy  but  that 
convinced  her  they  could  never  be  happy  together. 
As  she  did  not  give  the  reasons,  he  found  a  natural 
difficulty  in  accepting  them,  and  there  was  some 
thing  in  the  situation  which  appealed  strongly  to  his 
contrary-mindedness.  Partly  from  this,  partly  from 
his  sense  of  injury  in  being  obliged  so  soon  to  adjust 


524          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

himself  to  new  conditions,  and  partly  from  his  com 
fortable  feeling  of  security  from  an  engagement  to 
which  his  assent  had  been  forced,  he  said,  "  I  hope 
you're  not  making  a  mistake." 

"  Oh,  no,"  she  answered,  and  she  attested  her  con 
viction  by  a  burst  of  sobbing  that  lasted  well  on  the 
way  to  the  first  stop  of  the  train. 


LXIX. 

IT  would  have  been  always  twice  as  easy  to  go  di- 
rect  from  Berlin  to  the  Hague  through  Hanover;  but 
the  Marches  decided  to  go  by  Frankfort  and  the 
Rhine,  because  they  wished  to  revisit  the  famous 
river,  which  they  remembered  from  their  youth,  and 
because  they  wished  to  stop  at  Diisseldorf,  where 
Heinrich  Heine  was  born.  Without  this  Mrs.  March, 
who  kept  her  husband  up  to  his  early  passion  for  the 
poet  with  a  feeling  that  she  was  defending  him  from 
age  in  it,  said  that  their  silver  wedding  journey  would 
not  be  complete ;  and  he  began  himself  to  think  that 
it  would  be  interesting. 

They  took  a  sleeping-car  for  Frankfort  and  they 
woke  early  as  people  do  in  sleeping-cars  everywhere. 
March  dressed  and  went  out  for  a  cup  of  the  same 
coffee  of  which  sleeping-car  buffets  have  the  awful 
secret  in  Europe  as  well  as  America,  and  for  a  glimpse 
of  the  twilight  landscape.  One  gray  little  town,  tow 
ered  and  steepled  and  red-roofed  within  its  mediaeval 
walls,  looked  as  if  it  would  have  been  warmer  in 
something  more.  There  was  a  heavy  dew,  if  not  a 
light  frost,  over  all,  and  in  places  a  pale  fog  began  to 


526  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

lift  from  the  low  hills.  Then  the  sun  rose  without 
dispersing  the  cold,  which  was  afterwards  so  severe 
in  their  room  at  the  Russischer  Hof  in  Frankfort  that 
in  spite  of  the  steam -radiators  they  sat  shivering  in 
all  their  wraps  till  breakfast-time. 

There  was  no  steam  on  in  the  radiators,  of  course ; 
when  they  implored  the  portier  for  at  least  a  lamp  to 
warm  their  hands  by  he  turned  on  all  the  electric 
lights  without  raising  the  temperature  in  the  slightest 
degree.  Amidst  these  modern  comforts  they  were 
so  miserable  that  they  vowed  each  other  to  shun,  as 
long  as  they  were  in  Germany,  or  at  least  while  the 
summer  lasted,  all  hotels  which  were  steam-heated  and 
electric-lighted.  They  heated  themselves  somewhat 
with  their  wrath,  and  over  their  breakfast  they  re 
lented  so  far  as  to  suffer  themselves  a  certain  interest 
in  the  troops  of  all  arms  beginning  to  pass  the  hotel. 
They  were  fragments  of  the  great  parade,  which  had 
ended  the  day  before,  and  they  were  now  drifting 
back  to  their  several  quarters  of  the  empire.  Many 
of  them  were  very  picturesque,  and  they  had  for  the 
boys  and  girls  running  before  and  beside  them,  the 
charm  which  armies  and  circus  processions  have  for 
children  everywhere.  But  their  passage  filled  with 
cruel  anxiety  a  large  old  dog  whom  his  master  had 
left  harnessed  to  a  milk-cart  before  the  hotel  door; 
from  time  to  time  he  lifted  up  his  voice,  and  called 
to  the  absentee  with  hoarse,  deep  barks  that  almost 
shook  him  from  his  feet. 

The  day  continued  blue  and  bright  and  cold,  and 
the  Marches  gave  the  morning  to  a  rapid  survey  of 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  527 

the  city,  glad  that  it  was  at  least  not  wet.  What 
afterwards  chiefly  remained  to  them  was  the  impres 
sion  of  an  old  town  as  quaint  almost  and  as  Gothic  as 
old  Hamburg,  and  a  new  town,  handsome  and  regular, 
and,  in  the  sudden  arrest  of  some  streets,  apparently 
overbuilt.  The  modern  architectural  taste  was  of  course 
Parisian  ;  there  is  no  other  taste  for  the  Germans ;  but 
in  the  prevailing  absence  of  statues  there  was  a  relief 
from  the  most  oppressive  characteristic  of  the  imperial 
capital  which  was  a  positive  delight  Some  sort  of 
monument  to  the  national  victory  over  France  there 
must  have  been  ;  but  it  must  have  been  unusually  in 
offensive,  for  it  left  no  record  of  itself  in  the  travel 
lers'  consciousness.  They  were  aware  of  gardened 
squares  and  avenues,  bordered  by  stately  dwellings, 
of  dignified  civic  edifices,  and  of  a  vast  and  splendid 
railroad  station,  such  as  the  state  builds  even  in  minor 
European  cities,  but  such  as  our  paternal  corporations 
have  not  yet  given  us  anywhere  in  America.  They 
went  to  the  Zoological  Garden,  where  they  heard  the 
customary  Kalmucks  at  their  public  prayers  behind  a 
high  board  fence ;  and  as  pilgrims  from  the  most  plu- 
trocratic  country  in  the  world  March  insisted  that 
they  must  pay  their  devoirs  at  the  shrine  of  the  Roth 
schilds,  whose  natal  banking-house  they  revered  from 
the  outside. 

It  was  a  pity,  he  said,  that  the  Rothschilds  were 
not  on  his  letter  of  credit;  he  would  have  been  will 
ing  to  pay  tribute  to  the  Genius  of  Finance  in  the 
percentage  on  at  least  ten  pounds.  But  he  consoled 
himself  by  reflecting  that  he  did  not  need  the  money ; 


528  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

and  he  consoled  Mrs.  March  for  their  failure  to  pene 
trate  to  the  interior  of  the  Rothschilds'  birthplace  by 
taking  her  to  see  the  house  where  Goethe  was  born. 
The  public  is  apparently  much  more  expected  there, 
and  in  the  friendly  place  they  were  no  doubt  much 
more  welcome  than  they  would  have  been  in  the 
Rothschild  house.  Under  that  roof  they  renewed  a 
happy  moment  of  Weimar,  which  after  the  lapse  of  a 
week  seemed  already  so  remote.  They  wondered,  as 
they  mounted  the  stairs  from  the  basement  opening 
into  a  clean  little  court,  how  Burnamy  was  getting  on, 
and  whether  it  had  yet  come  to  that  understanding 
between  him  and  Agatha,  which  Mrs.  March,  at  least, 
had  meant  to  be  inevitable.  Then  they  became  part 
of  some  such  sight-seeing  retinue  as  followed  the 
custodian  about  in  the  Goethe  house  in  Weimar,  and 
of  an  emotion  indistinguishable  from  that  of  their 
fellow  sight-seers.  They  could  make  sure,  afterwards, 
of  a  personal  pleasure  in  a  certain  prescient  classicism 
of  the  house.  It  somehow  recalled  both  the  Goethe 
houses  at  Weimar,  and  it  somehow  recalled  Italy.  It 
is  a  separate  house  of  two  floors  above  the  entrance, 
which  opens  to  a  little  court  or  yard,  and  gives  access 
by  a  decent  stairway  to  the  living-rooms.  The  chief 
of  these  is  a  sufficiently  dignified  parlor  or  salon,  and 
the  most  important  is  the  little  chamber  in  the  third 
story  where  the  poet  first  opened  his  eyes  to  the  light 
which  he  rejoiced  in  for  so  long  a  life,  and  which, 
dying,  he  implored  to  be  with  him  more.  It  is  as 
large  as  his  death-chamber  in  Weimar,  where  he 
breathed  this  prayer,  and  it  looks  down  into  the 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  529 

Italian-looking  court,  where  probably  he  noticed  the 
world  for  the  first  time,  and  thought  it  a  paved  en 
closure  thirty  or  forty  feet  square.  In  the  birth- room 
they  keep  his  puppet  theatre,  and  the  place  is  fairly 
suggestive  of  his  childhood ;  later,  in  his  youth,  he 
could  look  from  the  parlor  windows  and  see  the  house 
where  his  earliest  love  dwelt.  So  much  remains  of 
Goethe  in  the  place  where  he  was  born,  and  as  such 
things  go,  it  is  not  a  little.  The  house  is  that  of  a 
prosperous  and  well-placed  citizen,  and  speaks  of  the 
senatorial  quality  in  his  family  which  Heine  says  he 
was  fond  of  recalling,  rather  than  the  sartorial  quality 
of  the  ancestor  who,  again  as  Heine  says,  mended  the 
Republic's  breeches. 

From  the  Goethe  house,  one  drives  by  the  Goethe 
monument  to  the  Homer,  the  famous  town-hall  of  the 
old  free  imperial  city  which  Frankfort  once  was ;  and 
by  this  route  the  Marches  drove  to  it,  agreeing  with 
their  coachman  that  he  was  to  keep  as  much  in  the 
sun  as  possible.  It  was  still  so  cold  that  when  they 
reached  the  Romer,  and  he  stopped  in  a  broad  blaze 
of  the  only  means  of  heating  that  they  have  in  Frank 
fort  in  the  summer,  the  travellers  were  loath  to  leave 
it  for  the  chill  interior,  where  the  German  emperors 
were  elected  for  so  many  centuries.  As  soon  as  an 
emperor  was  chosen,  in  the  great  hall  effigied  round 
with  the  portraits  of  his  predecessors,  he  hurried  out 
in  the  balcony,  ostensibly  to  show  himself  to  the  peo 
ple,  but  really,  March  contended,  to  warm  up  a  little 
in  the  sun.  The  balcony  was  undergoing  repairs 
that  day,  and  the  travellers  could  not  go  out  on  it; 


530  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

but  under  the  spell  of  the  historic  interest  of  the 
beautiful  old  Gothic  place,  they  lingered  in  the  inte 
rior  till  they  were  half -torpid  with  the  cold.  Then 
she  abandoned  to  him  the  joint  duty  of  viewing  the 
cathedral,  and  hurried  to  their  carriage  where  she 
basked  in  the  sun  till  he  came  to  her.  He  returned 
shivering,  after  a  half-hour's  absence,  and  pretended 
that  she  had  missed  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world, 
but  as  he  could  never  be  got  to  say  just  what  she  had 
lost,  and  under  the  closest  cross-examination  could 
not  prove  that  this  cathedral  was  memorably  different 
from  hundreds  of  other  fourteenth-century  cathedrals, 
she  remained  in  a  lasting  content  with  the  easier  part 
she  had  chosen.  His  only  definite  impression  at  the 
cathedral  seemed  to  be  confined  to  a  Bostonian  of 
gloomily  correct  type,  whom  he  had  seen  doing  it 
with  his  Baedeker,  and  not  letting  an  object  of  inter 
est  escape ;  and  his  account  of  her  fellow-townsman 
reconciled  Mrs.  March  more  and  more  to  not  having 
gone. 

As  it  was  warmer  out-doors  than  in-doors  at. Frank 
fort,  and  as  the  breadth  of  sunshine  increased  with 
the  approach  of  noon  they  gave  the  rest  of  the  morn 
ing  to  driving  about  and  ignorantly  enjoying  the  out 
side  of  many  Gothic  churches,  whose  names  even  they 
did  not  trouble  themselves  to  learn.  They  liked  the 
river  Main  whenever  they  came  to  it,  because  it  was 
so  lately  from  Wiirzburg,  and  because  it  was  so  beau 
tiful  with  its  bridges,  old  and  new,  and  its  boats  of 
many  patterns.  They  liked  the  market-place  in  front 
of  the  Romer  not  only  because  it  was  full  of  fascinat- 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  531 

ing  bargains  in  curious  crockery  and  wooden-ware, 
but  because  there  was  scarcely  any  shade  at  all  in  it. 
They  read  from  their  Baedeker  that  until  the  end  of  the 
last  century  no  Jew  was  suffered  to  enter  the  market 
place,  and  they  rejoiced  to  find  from  all  appearances 
that  the  Jews,  had  been  making  up  for  their  unjust 
exclusion  ever  since.  They  were  almost  as  numerous 
there  as  the  Anglo-Saxons  were  everywhere  else  in 
Frankfort.  These,  both  of  the  English  and  American 
branches  of  the  race,  prevailed  in  the  hotel  dining- 
room,  where  the  Marches  had  a  mid-day  dinner  so 
good  that  it  almost  made  amends  for  the  steam-heat 
ing  and  electric-lighting. 

As  soon  as  possible  after  dinner  they  took  the  train 
for  Mayence,  and  ran  Rhinewards  through  a  pretty 
country  into  what  seemed  a  milder  climate.  It  grew 
so  much  milder,  apparently,  that  a  lady  in  their  com 
partment  to  whom  March  offered  his  forward-looking 
seat,  ordered  the  window  down  when  the  guard  came, 
without  asking  their  leave.  Then  the  climate  proved 
much  colder,  and  Mrs.  March  cowered  under  her 
shawls  the  rest  of  the  way,  and  would  not  be  entreated 
to  look  at  the  pleasant  level  landscape  near,  or  the 
hills  far  off.  He  proposed  to  put  up  the  window  as 
peremptorily  as  it  had  been  put  down,  but  she  stayed 
him  with  a  hoarse  whisper,  "  She  may  be  another 
Baroness ! "  At  first  he  did  not  know  what  she 
meant,  then  he  remembered  the  lady  whose  claims  to 
rank  her  presence  had  so  poorly  enforced  on  the  way 
to  Wiirzburg,  and  he  perceived  that  his  wife  was 
practising  a  wise  forbearance  with  their  fellow-passen- 


532          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

gers,  and  giving  her  a  chance  to  turn  out  any  sort  of 
highhote  she  chose.  She  failed  to  profit  by  the  op 
portunity  ;  she  remained  simply  a  selfish,  disagreeable 
woman,  of  no  more  perceptible  distinction  than  their 
other  fellow-passenger,  a  little  commercial  traveller 
from  Vienna  (they  resolved  from  his  appearance  and 
the  lettering  on  his  valise  that  he  was  no  other),  who 
slept  with  a  sort  of  passionate  intensity  all  the  way 
to  Mayence. 


LXX. 

THE  Main  widened  and  swam  fuller  as  they  ap 
proached  the  Rhine,  and  flooded  the  low-lying  fields 
in  places  with  a  pleasant  effect  under  a  wet  sunset. 
When  they  reached  the  station  in  Mayence  they  drove 
interminably  to  the  hotel  they  had  chosen  on  the 
river-shore,  through  a  city  handsomer  and  cleaner 
than  any  American  city  they  could  think  of,  and  great 
part  of  the  way  by  a  street  of  dwellings  nobler,  Mrs. 
March  owned,  than  even  Commonwealth  Avenue  in 
Boston.  It  was  planted,  like  .  that,  with  double  rows 
of  trees,  but  lacked  its  green  lawns ;  and  at  times  the 
sign  of  Weinhandlung  at  a  corner,  betrayed  that  there 
was  no  such  restriction  against  shops  as  keeps  the 
Boston  street  so  sacred.  Otherwise  they  had  to  con 
fess  once  more  that  any  inferior  city  of  Germany  is 
of  a  more  proper  and  dignified  presence  than  the 
most  purse-proud  metropolis  in  America.  To  be 
sure,  they  said,  the  German  towns  had  generally  a 
thousand  years'  start ;  but  all  the  same  the  fact  galled 
them. 

It  was  very  bleak,  though  very  beautiful  when  they 
stopped  before  their  hotel  on  the  Rhine,  where  all 


534  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

their  impalpable  memories  of  their  visit  to  Mayence 
thirty  years  earlier  precipitated  themselves  into  some 
thing  tangible.  There  were  the  reaches  of  the  storied 
and  fabled  stream  with  its  boats  and  bridges  and 
wooded  shores  and  islands ;  there  were  the  spires  and 
towers  and  roofs  of  the  town  on  either  bank  crowding 
to  the  river's  brink ;  and  there  within -doors  was  the 
stately  portier  in  gold  braid,  and  the  smiling,  bowing, 
hand-rubbing  landlord,  alluring  them  to  his  most 
expensive  rooms,  which  so  late  in  the  season  he  would 
fain  have  had  them  take.  But  in  a  little  elevator, 
that  mounted  slowly,  very  slowly,  in  the  curve  of  the 
stairs,  they  went  higher  to  something  lower,  and  the 
landlord  retired  baffled,  and  left  them  to  the  ministra 
tions  of  the  serving-men  who  arrived  with  their  large 
and  small  baggage.  All  these  retired  in  turn  when 
they  asked  to  have  a  fire  lighted  in  the  stove,  without 
which  Mrs.  March  would  never  have  taken  the  fine 
stately  rooms,  and  sent  back  a  pretty  young  girl  to 
do  it.  She  came  indignant,  not  because  she  had  come 
lugging  a  heavy  hod  of  coal  and  a  great  arm-load  of 
wood,  but  because  her  sense  of  fitness  was  outraged 
by  the  strange  demand. 

"  What !  "  she  cried.     "  A  fire  in  September  !  " 

"Yes,"  March  returned,  inspired  to  miraculous 
aptness  in  his  German  by  the  exigency,  "  yes,  if  Sep 
tember  is  coZc?." 

The  girl  looked  at  him,  and  then,  either  because 
she  thought  him  mad,  or  liked  him  merry,  burst  into  a 
loud  laugh,  and  kindled  the  fire  without  a  word  more. 

He  lighted  all  the  reluctant  gas-jets  in  the  vast  gilt 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  535 

chandelier,  and  in  less  than  half  an  hour  the  temper 
ature  of  the  place  rose  to  at  least  sixty-five  Fahren 
heit,  with  every  promise  of  going  higher.  Mrs.  March 
made  herself  comfortable  in  a  deep  chair  before  the 
stove,  and  said  she  would  have  her  supper  there ;  and 
she  bade  him  send  her  just  such  a  supper  of  chicken 
and  honey  and  tea  as  they  had  all  had  in  Mayence 
when  they  supped  in  her  aunt's  parlor  there  all  those 
years  ago.  He  wished  to  compute  the  years,  but  she 
drove  him  out  with  an  imploring  cry,  and  he  went 
down  to  a  very  gusty  dining-room  on  the  ground-floor, 
where  he  found  himself  alone  with  a  young  English 
couple  and  their  little  boy.  They  were  friendly,  in 
telligent  people,  and  would  have  been  conversable, 
apparently,  but  for  the  terrible  cold  of  the  husband, 
which  he  said  he  had  contracted  at  the  manoauvres  in 
Hombourg.  March  said  he  was  going  to  Holland,  and 
the  Englishman  was  doubtful  of  the  warmth  which 
March  expected  to  find  there.  He  seemed  to  be  suf 
fering  from  a  suspense  of  faith  as  to  the  warmth  any 
where  ;  from  time  to  time  the  door  of  the  dining-room 
self-opened  in  a  silent,  ghostly  fashion  into  the  court 
without,  and  let  in  a  chilling  draught  about  the  legs 
of  all,  till  the  little  English  boy  got  down  from  his 
place  and  shut  it. 

He  alone  continued  cheerful,  for  March's  spirits 
certainly  did  not  rise  when  some  mumbling  Ameri 
cans  came  in  and  muttered  over  their  meat  at  another 
table.  He  hated  to  own  it,  but  he  had  to  own  that 
wherever  he  had  met  the  two  branches  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race  together  in  Europe,  the  elder  had  shone, 


536  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

by  a  superior  cliirpiness,  to  the  disadvantage  of  the 
younger.  The  cast  clothes  of  the  old-fashioned  Brit 
ish  offishness  seemed  to  have  fallen  to  the  American 
travellers  who  were  trying  to  be  correct  and  exem 
plary  ;  and  he  would  almost  rather  have  had  back  the 
old-style  bragging  Americans  whom  he  no  longer  saw. 
He  asked  of  an  agreeable  fellow-countryman  whom  he 
he  found  later  in  the  reading-room,  what  had  become 
of  these ;  and  this  compatriot  said  he  had  travelled 
with  one  only  the  day  before,  who  had  posed  before 
their  whole  compartment  in  his  scorn  of  the  German 
landscape,  the  German  weather,  the  German  govern 
ment,  the  German  railway  management,  and  then 
turned  out  an  American  of  German  birth ! 

March  found  his  wife  in  great  bodily  comfort  when 
he  went  back  to  her,  but  in  trouble  of  mind  about  a 
clock  which  she  had  discovered  standing  on  the  lac 
quered  iron  top  of  the  stove.  It  was  a  French  clock, 
of  architectural  pretensions,  in  the  taste  of  the  first 
Empire,  and  it  looked  as  if  it  had  not  been  going 
since  Napoleon  occupied  Mayence  early  in  the  cen 
tury.  But  Mrs.  March  now  had  it  sorely  on  her 
conscience  where,  in  its  danger  from  the  heat  of  the 
stove,  it  rested  with  the  weight  of  the  Pantheon, 
whose  classic  form  it  recalled.  §he  wondered  that  no 
one  had  noticed  it  before  the  fire  was  kindled,  and 
she  required  her  husband  to  remove  it  at  once  from 
the  top  of  the  stove  to  the  mantel  under  the  mir 
ror,  which  was  the  natural  habitat  of  such  a  clock. 
He  said  nothing  could  be  simpler,  but  when  he  lifted 
it,  it  began  to  fall  all  apart,  like  a  clock  in  the  house 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  537 

of  the  Hoodoo.  Its  marble  base  dropped  off;  its 
pillars  tottered;  its  pediment  swayed  to  one  side. 
While  Mrs.  March  lamented  her  hard  fate,  and  im 
plored  him  to  hurry  it  together  before  any  one  came, 
he  contrived  to  reconstruct  it  in  its  new  place.  Then 
they  both  breathed  freer,  and  returned  to  sit  down 
before  the  stove.  But  at  the  same  moment  they  both 
saw,  ineffaccably  outlined  on  the  lacquered  top,  the 
basal  form  of  the  clock.  The  chambermaid  would  see 
it  in  the  morning;  she  would  notice  the  removal  of 
the  clock,  and  would  make  a  merit  of  reporting  its 
ruin  by  the  heat  to  the  landlord,  and  in  the  end  they 
would  be  mulcted  of  its  value.  Rather  than  suffer 
this  wrong  they  agreed  to  restore  it  to  its  place,  and 
let  it  go  to  destruction  upon  its  own  terms.  March 
painfully  rebuilt  it  where  he  had  found  it,  and  they 
went  to  bed  with  a  bad  conscience  to  worse  dreams. 

He  remembered,  before  he  slept,  the  hour  of  his 
youth  when  he  was  in  Mayence  before,  and  was  so 
care  free  that  he  had  heard  with  impersonal  joy  two 
young  American  voices  speaking  English  in  the  street 
under  his  window.  One  of  them  broke  from  the  com 
mon  talk  with  a  gay  burlesque  of  pathos  in  the  line — 

"Oh  heavens  !  sho  cried,  my  bleeding  country  save  !" 
and  then  with  a  laughing  good-night  these  unseen, 
unknown  spirits  of  youth  parted  and  departed.  Who 
were  they,  and  in  what  different  places,  with  what 
cares  or  ills,  had  their  joyous  voices  grown  old,  or 
fallen  silent  for  evermore  ?  It  was  a  moonlight  night, 
March  remembered,  and  he  remembered  how  he 
wished  he  were  out  in  it  with  those  merry  fellows. 


538  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

He  nursed  the  memory  and  the  wonder  in  his 
dreaming  thought,  and  he  woke  early  to  other  voices 
under  his  window.  But  now  the  voices,  though 
young,  were  many  and  were  German,  and  the  march 
of  feet  and  the  stamp  of  hooves  kept  time  with  their 
singing.  He  drew  his  curtain  and  saw  the  street 
filled  with  broken  squads  of  men,  some  afoot  and 
some  on  horseback,  some  in  uniform  and  some  in  civil 
dress  with  students'  caps,  loosely  straggling  on  and 
roaring  forth  that  song  whose  words  he  could  not 
make  out.  At  breakfast  he  asked  the  waiter  what  it 
all  meant,  and  he  said  that  these  were  conscripts 
whose  service  had  expired  with  the  late  manoeuvres, 
and  who  were  now  going  home.  He  promised  March 
a  translation  of  the  song,  but  he  never  gave  it;  and 
perhaps  the  sense  of  their  joyful  home-going  remained 
the  more  poetic  with  him  because  its  utterance  re 
mained  inarticulate. 

March  spent  the  rainy  Sunday,  on  which  they  had 
fallen,  in  wandering  about  the  little  city  alone.  His 
wife  said  she  was  tired  and  would  sit  by  the  fire,  and 
hear  about  Mayence  when  he  came  in.  He  went  to 
the  cathedral,  which  has  its  renown  for  beauty  and 
antiquity,  and  he  there  added  to  his  stock  of  useful 
information  the  fact  that  the  people  of  Mayence 
seemed  very  Catholic  and  very  devout.  They  proved 
it  by  preferring  to  any  of  the  divine  old  Gothic  shrines 
in  the  cathedral,  an  ugly  baroque  altar,  which  was 
everywhere  hung  about  with  votive  offerings.  A 
fashionably  dressed  young  man  and  young  girl  sprin 
kled  themselves  with  holy  water  as  reverently  as  if 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  539 

they  had  been  old  and  ragged.  Some  tourists  strolled 
up  and  down  the  aisles  with  their  red  guide-books, 
and  studied  the  objects  of  interest.  A  resplendent 
beadle  in  a  cocked  hat,  and  with  a  long  staff  of  author 
ity  posed  before  his  own  ecclesiastical  consciousness 
in  blue  and  silver.  At  the  high  altar  a  priest  was 
saying  mass,  and  March  wondered  whether  his  con 
sciousness  was  as  wholly  ecclesiastical  as  the  beadle's, 
or  whether  somewhere  in  it  he  felt  the  historical  maj 
esty,  the  long  human  consecration  of  the  place. 

He  wandered  at  random  in  the  town  through  streets 
German  and  quaint  and  old,  and  streets  French  and 
fine  and  new,  and  got  back  to  the  river,  which  he 
crossed  on  one  of  the  several  handsome  bridges.  The 
rough  river  looked  chill  under  a  sky  of  windy  clouds, 
and  he  felt  out  of  season,  both  as  to  the  summer 
travel,  and  as  to  the  journey  he  was  making.  The 
summer  of  life  as  well  as  the  summer  of  that  year  was 
past.  Better  return  to  his  own  radiator  in  his  flat  on 
Stuy vesant  Square ;  to  the  great  ugly  brutal  town 
which,  if  it  was  not  home  to  him,  was  as  much  home 
to  him  as  to  any  one.  A  longing  for  New  York  welled 
up  his  heart,  which  was  perhaps  really  a  wish  to  be 
at  work  again.  He  said  he  must  keep  this  from  his 
wife,  who  seemed  not  very  well,  and  whom  he  must 
try  to  cheer  up  when  he  returned  to  the  hotel. 

But  they  had  not  a  very  joyous  afternoon,  and  the 
evening  was  no  gayer.  They  said  that  if  they  had 
not  ordered  their  letters  sent  to  Diisseldorf  they  be 
lieved  they  should  push  on  to  Holland  without  stop 
ping;  and  March  would  have  liked  to  ask,  \Vhy  riot 


540          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.    , 

push  on  to  America?  But  he  forbore,  and  he  was 
afterwards  glad  that  he  had  done  so. 

In  the  morning  their  spirits  rose  with  the  sun, 
though  the  sun  got  up  behind  clouds  as  usual;  and 
they  were  further  animated  by  the  imposition  which 
the  landlord  practised  upon  them.  After  a  distinct 
and  repeated  agreement  as  to  the  price  of  their  rooms 
he  charged  them  twice  as  much,  and  then  made  a 
merit  of  throwing  off  two  marks  out  of  the  twenty 
he  had  plundered  them  of. 

"  Now  I  see,"  said  Mrs.  March,  on  their  way  down 
to  the  boat,  "  how  fortunate  it  was  that  we  baked  his 
clock.  You  may  laugh,  but  I  believe  we  were  the  in 
struments  of  justice." 

"  Do  you  suppose  that  clock  was  never  baked  be 
fore  ? "  asked  her  husband.  "  The  landlord  has  his 
own  arrangement  with  justice.  When  he  overcharges 
his  parting  guests  he  says  to  his  conscience,  Well, 
they  baked  my  clock." 


LXXI. 

THE  morning  was  raw,  but  it  was  something  not  to 
have  it  rainy ;  and  the  clouds  that  hung  upon  the  hills 
and  hid  their  tops  were  at  least  as  fine  as  the  long 
board  signs  advertising  chocolate  on  the  river  banks. 
The  smoke  rising  from  the  chimneys  of  the  manu 
factories  of  Mayence  was  not  so  bad,  either,  when  one 
got  them  in  the  distance  a  little ;  and  March  liked  the 
way  the  river  swam  to  the  stems  of  the  trees  on  the 
low  grassy  shores.  It  was  like  the  Mississippi  be 
tween  St.  Louis  and  Cairo  in  that,  and  it  was  yellow 
and  thick,  like  the  Mississippi,  though  he  thought  he 
remembered  it  blue  and  clear.  A  friendly  German, 
of  those  who  began  to  come  aboard  more  and  more  at 
all  the  landings  after  leaving  Mayence,  assured  him 
that  he  was  right,  and  that  the  Rhine  was  unusually 
turbid  from  the  unusual  rains.  March  had  his  own 
belief  that  whatever  the  color  of  the  Rhine  might  be 
the  rains  were  not  unusual,  but  he  could  not  gainsay 
the  friendly  German. 

Most  of  the  passengers  at  starting  were  English  and 
American ;  but  they  showed  no  prescience  of  the  in 
ternational  affinition  which  has  since  realized  itself,  in 


542          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

their  behavior  toward  one  another.  They  held  silently 
apart,  and  mingled  only  in  the  effect  of  one  young 
man  who  kept  the  Marches  in  perpetual  question 
whether  he  was  a  Bostonian  or  an  Englishman.  His 
look  was  Bostonian,  but  his  accent  was  English ;  and 
was  he  a  Bostonian  who  had  been  in  England  long 
enough  to  get  the  accent,  or  was  he  an  Englishmar 
who  had  been  in  Boston  long  enough  to  get  the  look  ? 
He  wore  a  belated  straw  hat,  and  a  thin  sack-coat ; 
and  in  the  rush  of  the  boat  through  the  raw  air  they 
fancied  him  very  cold,  and  longed  to  offer  him  one 
of  their  superabundant  wraps.  At  times  March  actu 
ally  lifted  a  shawl  from  his  knees,  feeling  sure  that 
the  stranger  was  English  and  that  he  might  make  so 
bold  with  him  ;  then  at  some  glacial  glint  in  the  young 
man's  eye,  or  at  some  petrific  expression  of  his  deli 
cate  face,  he  felt  that  he  was  a  Bostonian,  and  lost 
courage  and  let  the  shawl  sink  again.  March  tried  to 
forget  him  in  the  wonder  of  seeing  the  Germans  be 
gin  to  eat  and  drink,  as  soon  as  they  came  on  board, 
either  from  the  baskets  they  had  brought  with  them, 
or  from  the  boat's  provision.  But  he  prevailed,  with 
his  smile  that  was  like  a  sneer,  through  all  the  events 
of  the  voyage ;  and  took  March's  mind  off  the  scenery 
with  a  sudden  wrench  when  he  came  unexpectedly 
into  view  after  a  momentary  disappearance.  At  the 
table  d'hote,  which  was  served  when  the  landscape 
began  to  be  less  interesting,  the  guests  were  expected 
to  hand  their  plates  across  the  table  to  the  stewards 
but  to  keep  their  knives  and  forks  throughout  the 
different  courses,  and  at  each  of  these  partial  changes 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  543 

March  felt  the  young  man's  chilly  eyes  upon  him, 
inculpating  him  for  the  semi-civilization  of  the  man 
agement.  At  such  times  he  knew  that  he  was  a  Bos- 
tonian. 

The  weather  cleared,  as  they  descended  the  river, 
and  under  a  sky  at  last  cloudless,  the  Marches  had 
moments  of  swift  reversion  to  their  former  Rhine 
journey,  when  they  were  young  and  the  purple  light 
of  love  mantled  the  vineyarded  hills  along  the  shore, 
and  flushed  the  castled  steeps.  The  scene  had  lost 
nothing  of  the  beauty  they  dimly  remembered ;  there 
were  certain  features  of  it  which  seemed  even  fairer 
and  grander  than  they  remembered.  The  town  of 
Bingen,  where  everybody  who  knows  the  poem  was 
more  or  less  born,  was  beautiful  in  spite  of  its  factory 
chimneys,  though  there  were  no  compensating  castles 
near  it ;  and  the  castles  seemed  as  good  as  those  of 
the  theatre.  Here  and  there  some  of  them  had  been 
restored  and  were  occupied,  probably  by  robber  bar 
ons  who  had  gone  into  trade.  Others  were  still  ruin 
ous,  and  there  was  now  and  then  such  a  mere  gray 
snag  that  March,  at  sight  of  it,  involuntarily  put  his 
tongue  to  the  broken  tooth  which  he  was  keeping  for 
the  skill  of  the  first  American  dentist. 

For  natural  sublimity  the  Rhine  scenery,  as  they 
recognized  once  more,  does  not  compare  with  the 
Hudson  scenery ;  and  they  recalled  one  point  on  the 
American  river  where  the  Central  Road  tunnels  a  jut 
ting  cliff,  which  might  very  well  pass  for  the  rock  of 
the  Loreley,  where  she  dreams 

Sole  sitting  by  the  shores  of  old  romance. 


544          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY. 

and  the  trains  run  in  and  out  under  her  knees  un 
heeded.  "Still,  still  you  know,"  March  argued, 
"  this  is  the  Loreley  on  the  Rhine,  and  not  the  Loreley 
on  the  Hudson ;  and  I  suppose  that  makes  all  the  dif 
ference.  Besides,  the  Rhine  doesn't  set  up  to  be 
sublime ;  it  only  means  to  be  storied  and  dreamy  and 
romantic,  and  it  does  it.  And  then  we  have  really  got 
no  Mouse  Tower ;  we  might  build  one,  to  be  sure." 

"  Well,  we  have  got  no  denkmal,  either,"  said  his 
wife,  meaning  the  national  monument  to  the  German 
reconquest  of  the  Rhine,  which  they  had  just  passed, 
"  and  that  is  something  in  our  favor." 

"  It  was  too  far  off  for  us  to  see  how  ugly  it  was," 
he  returned. 

"The  denkmal  at  Coblenz  was  so  near  that  the 
bronze  Emperor  almost  rode  aboard  the  boat." 

He  could  not  answer  such  a  piece  of  logic  as  that. 
He  yielded,  and  began  to  praise  the  orcharded  levels 
which  now  replaced  the  vine-purpled  slopes  of  the 
upper  river.  He  said  they  put  him  in  mind  of  or 
chards  that  he  had  known  in  his  boyhood ;  and  they 
agreed  that  the  supreme  charm  of  travel,  after  all,  was 
not  in  seeing  something  new  and  strange,  but  in  find 
ing  something  familiar  and  dear  in  the  heart  of  the 
strangeness. 

At  Cologne  they  found  this  in  the  tumult  of  getting 
ashore  with  their  baggage  and  driving  from  the  steam 
boat  landing  to  the  railroad  station,  where  they  were 
to  get  their  train  for  Dusseldorf  an  hour  later.  The 
station  swarmed  with  travellers  eating  and  drinking 
and  smoking ;  but  they  escaped  from  it  for  a  precious 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  545 

half  of  their  golden  hour,  and  gave  the  time  to  the 
great  cathedral,  which  was  built,  a  thousand  years 
ago,  just  round  the  corner  from  the  station,  and  is 
therefore  very  handy  to  it.  Since  they  saw  the  cathe 
dral  last  it  had  been  finished,  and  now  under  a  cloud 
less  evening  sky,  it  soared  and  swept  upward  like  a 
pale  flame.  Within  it  was  a  bit  overclean,  a  bit  bare, 
but  without  it  was  one  of  the  great  memories  of  the 
race,  the  record  of  a  faith  which  wrought  miracles  of 
beauty,  at  least,  if  not  piety. 

The  train  gave  the  Marches  another,  a  last,  view  of 
it  as  they  slowly  drew  out  of  the  city,  and  began  to 
run  through  a  level  country  walled  with  far-off  hills ; 
past  fields  of  buckwheat  showing  their  stems  like  coral 
under  their  black  tops;  past  peasant  houses  changing 
their  wonted  shape  to  taller  and  narrower  forms  ;  past 
sluggish  streams  from  which  the  mist  rose  and  hung 
over  the  meadows,  under  a  red  sunset,  glassy  clear 
till  the  manifold  factory  chimneys  of  Diisseldorf 
stained  it  with  their  dun  smoke. 

This  industrial  greeting  seemed  odd  from  the  town 
where  Heinrich  Heine  was  born  ;  but  when  they  had 
eaten  their  supper  in  the  capital  little  hotel  they  found 
there,  and  went  out  for  a  stroll,  they  found  nothing  to 
remind  them  of  the  factories,  and  much  to  make  them 
think  of  the  poet.  The  moon,  beautiful  and  perfect 
as  a  stage  moon,  came  up  over  the  shoulder  of  a 
church  as  they  passed  down  a  long  street  which  they 
had  all  to  themselves.  Everybody  seemed  to  have 
gone  to  bed,  but  at  a  certain  corner  a  girl  opened  a 
window  above  them,  and  looked  out  at  the  moon. 
Ii 


546  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

When  they  returned  to  their  hotel  they  found  a  high- 
walled  garden  facing  it,  full  of  black  depths  of  foli 
age.  In  the  night  March  woke  and  saw  the  moon 
standing  over  the  garden,  and  silvering  its  leafy  tops. 
This  was  really  as  it  should  be  in  the  town  where  the 
idolized  poet  of  his  youth  was  born ;  the  poet  whom 
of  all  others  he  had  adored,  and  who  had  once  seemed 
like  a  living  friend ;  who  had  been  witness  of  his  first 
love,  and  had  helped  him  to  speak  it.  His  wife 
used  to  laugh  at  him  for  his  Heine-worship  in  those 
days;  but  she  had  since  come  to  share  it,  and  she, 
even  more  than  he,  had  insisted  upon  this  pilgrimage. 
He  thought  long  thoughts  of  the  past,  as  he  looked 
into  the  garden  across  the  way,  with  an  ache  for  his 
perished  self  and  the  dead  companionship  of  his 
youth,  all  ghosts  together  in  the  silvered  shadow. 
The  trees  shuddered  in  the  night  breeze,  and  its  chill 
penetrated  to  him  where  he  stood. 

His  wife  called  to  him  from  her  room,  "  What  are 
you  doing  ? " 

"  Oh,  sentimentalizing,"  he  answered  boldly. 

"  Well,  you  will  be  sick,"  she  said,  and  he  crept 
back  into  bed  again. 

They  had  sat  up  late,  talking  in  a  glad  excitement. 
But  he  woke  early,  as  an  elderly  man  is  apt  to  do 
after  broken  slumbers,  and  left  his  wife  still  sleeping. 
He  was  not  so  eager  for  the  poetic  interests  of  the 
town  as  he  had  been  the  night  before ;  he  even  defer 
red  his  curiosity  for  Heine's  birth-house  to  the  in 
structive  conference  which  he  had  with  his  waiter  at 
breakfast.  After  all,  was  not  it  more  important  to 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  547 

know  something  of  the  actual  life  of  a  simple  common 
class  of  men  than  to  indulge  a  faded  fancy  for  the 
memory  of  a  genius,  which  no  amount  of  associations 
could  feed  again  to  its  former  bloom  ?  The  waiter 
said  he  was  a  Nuremberger,  and  had  learned  English 
in  London  where  he  had  served  a  year  for  nothing. 
Afterwards,  when  he  could  speak  three  languages  he 
got  a  pound  a  week,  which  seemed  low  for  so  many, 
though  not  so  low  as  the  one  mark  a  day  which  he 
now  received  in  Dusseldorf ;  in  Berlin  he  paid  the 
hotel  two  marks  a  day.  March  confided  to  him  his 
secret  trouble  as  to  tips,  and  they  tried  vainly  to  en 
lighten  each  other  as  to  what  a  just  tip  was. 

He  went  to  his  banker's,  and  when  he  came  back 
he  found  his  wife  with  her  breakfast  eaten,  and  so 
eager  for  the  exploration  of  Heine's  birthplace  that 
she  heard  with  indifference  of  his  failure  to  get  any 
letters.  It  was  too  soon  to  expect  them,  she  said,  and 
then  she  showed  him  her  plan,  which  she  had  been 
working  out  ever  since  she  woke.  It  contained  every 
place  which  Heine  had  mentioned,  and  she  was  deter 
mined  not  one  should  escape  them.  She  examined 
him  sharply  upon  his  condition,  accusing  him  of  hav 
ing  taken  cold  when  he  got  up  in  the  night,  and  ac 
quitting  him  with  difficulty.  She  herself  was  perfectly 
well,  but  a  little  fagged,  and  they  must  have  a  carriage. 

They  set  out  in  a  lordly  two-spanner,  which  took 
up  half  the  little  Bolkerstrasse  where  Heine  was  born, 
when  they  stopped  across  the  way  from  his  birth- 
house,  so  that  she  might  first  take  it  all  in  from  the 
outside  before  they  entered  it.  It  is  a  simple  street, 


548  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

and  not  the  cleanest  of  the  streets  in  a  town  where 
most  of  them  are  rather  dirty.  Below  the  houses  are 
shops,  and  the  first  story  of  Heine's  house  is  a  butcher 
shop,  with  sides  of  pork  and  mutton  hanging  in  the 
windows ;  above,  where  the  Heine  family  must  once 
have  lived,  a  gold-beater  and  a  frame-maker  displayed 
their  signs. 

But  did  the  Heine  family  really  once  live  there  ? 
The  house  looked  so  fresh  and  new  that  in  spite  of 
the  tablet  in  its  front  affirming  it  the  poet's  birthplace, 
they  doubted ;  and  they  were  not  reassured  by  the 
people  who  half  halted  as  they  passed,  and  stared  at 
the  strangers,  so  anomalously  interested  in  the  place. 
They  dismounted,  and  crossed  to  the  butcher  shop 
where  the  provision  man  corroborated  the  tablet,  but 
could  not  understand  their  wish  to  go  up  stairs.  He 
did  not  try  to  prevent  them,  however,  and  they 
climbed  to  the  first  floor  above,  where  a  placard  on 
the  door  declared  it  private  and  implored  them  not  to 
knock.  Was  this  the  outcome  of  the  inmate's  despair 
from  the  intrusion  of  other  pilgrims  who  had  wished 
to  see  the  Heine  dwelling-rooms?  They  durst  not 
knock  and  ask  so  much,  and  they  sadly  descended  to 
the  ground-floor,  where  they  found  a  butcher  boy  of 
much  greater  apparent  intelligence  than  the  butcher 
himself,  who  told  them  that  the  building  in  front  was 
as  new  as  it  looked,  and  the  house  where  Heine  was 
really  born  was  the  old  house  in  the  rear.  He  showed 
them  this  house,  across  a  little  court  patched  with 
mangy  grass  and  lilac-bushes ;  and  when  they  wished 
to  visit  it  he  led  the  way.  The  place  was  strewn  both 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  549 

underfoot  and  overhead  with  feathers ;  it  had  once 
been  all  a  garden  out  to  the  street,  the  boy  said,  but 
from  these  feathers,  as  well  as  the  odor  which  pre 
vailed,  and  the  anxious  behavior  of  a  few  hens  left  in 
the  high  coop  at  one  side,  it  was  plain  that  what 
remained  of  the  garden  was  now  a  chicken  slaughter- 
yard.  There  was  one  well-grown  tree,  and  the  boy 
said  it  was  of  the  poet's  time  ;  but  when  he  let  them 
into  the  house,  he  became  vague  as  to  the  room  where 
Heine  was  born  ;  it  was  certain  only  that  it  was  some 
where  upstairs  and  that  it  could  not  be  seen.  The 
room  where  they  stood  was  the  frame-maker's  shop, 
and  they  bought  of  him  a  small  frame  for  a  memorial. 
They  bought  of  the  butcher's  boy,  not  so  commer 
cially,  a  branch  of  lilac ;  and  they  came  away,  think 
ing  how  much  amused  Heine  himself  would  have  been 
with  their  visit;  how  sadly,  how  merrily  he  would 
have  mocked  at  their  effort  to  revere  his  birthplace. 

They  were  too  old  if  not  too  wise  to  be  daunted  by 
their  defeat,  and  they  drove  next  to  the  old  court  gar 
den  beside  the  Rhine  where  the  poet  says  he  used  to 
play  with  the  little  Veronika,  and  probably  did  not. 
At  any  rate,  the  garden  is  gone;  the  Schloss  was 
burned  down  long  ago ;  and  nothing  remains  but  a 
detached  tower  in  which  the  good  Elector  Jan  Wil- 
helm,  of  Heine's  time,  amused  himself  with  his  many 
mechanical  inventions.  The  tower  seemed  to  be  in 
process  of  demolition,  but  an  intelligent  workman 
who  came  down  out  of  it,  was  interested  in  the  stran 
gers'  curiosity,  and  directed  them  to  a  place  behind 
the  Historical  Museum  where  they  could  find  a  bit  of 


550          THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

the  old  garden.  It  consisted  of  two  or  three  low 
trees,  and  under  them  the  statue  of  the  Elector  by 
which  Heine  sat  with  the  little  Veronika,  if  he  really 
did.  A  fresh  gale  blowing  through  the  trees  stirred 
the  bushes  that  backed  the  statue,  but  not  the  laurel 
wreathing  the  Elector's  head,  and  meeting  in  a  neat 
point  over  his  forehead.  The  laurel  wreath  is  stone, 
like  the  rest  of  the  Elector,  who  stands  there  smirk 
ing  in  marble  ermine  and  armor,  and  resting  his  baton 
on  the  nose  of  a  very  small  lion,  who,  in  the  exigen 
cies  of  foreshortening,  obligingly  goes  to  nothing  but 
a  tail  under  the  Elector's  robe. 

This  was  a  prince  who  loved  himself  in  effigy  so 
much  that  he  raised  an  equestrian  statue  to  his  own 
renown  in  the  market-place,  though  he  modestly  re 
fused  the  credit  of  it,  and  ascribed  its  erection  to  the 
affection  of  his  subjects.  You  see  him  there  in  a 
full-bottomed  wig,  mounted  on  a  rampant  charger 
with  a  tail  as  big  round  as  a  barrel,  and  heavy  enough 
to  keep  him  from  coming  down  on  his  fore  legs  as 
long  as  he  likes  to  hold  them  up.  It  was  to  this 
horse's  back  that  Heine  clambered  when  a  small  boy, 
to  see  the  French  take  formal  possession  of  Diissel- 
dorf ;  and  he  clung  to  the  waist  of  the  bronze  Elector, 
who  had  just  abdicated,  while  the  burgomaster  made  a 
long  speech,  from  the  balcony  of  the  Rathhaus,  and 
the  Electoral  arms  were  taken  down  from  its  doorway. 

The  Rathhaus  is  a  salad-dressing  of  German  gothic 
and  French  rococo  as  to  its  architectural  style,  and  is 
charming  in  its  way,  but  the  Marches  were  in  the 
market-place  for  the  sake  of  that  moment  of  Heine's 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  551 

boyhood.  They  felt  that  he  might  have  been  the  boy 
who  stopped  as  he  ran  before  them,  and  smacked  the 
stomach  of  a  large  pumpkin  lying  at  the  feet  of  an 
old  market-woman,  and  then  dashed  away  before  she 
could  frame  a  protest  against  the  indignity.  From 
this  incident  they  philosophized  that  the  boys  of 
Diisseldorf  are  as  mischievous  at  the  end  of  the  cen 
tury  as  they  were  at  the  beginning ;  and  they  felt  the 
fascination  that  such  a  bounteous,  unkempt  old  mark 
et-place  must  have  for  the  boys  of  any  period.  There 
were  magnificent  vegetables  of  all  sorts  in  it,  and  if 
the  fruits  were  meagre  that  was  the  fault  of  the  rainy 
summer,  perhaps.  The  market-place  was  very  dirty, 
and  so  was  the  narrow  street  leading  down  from  it  to 
the  Rhine,  which  ran  swift  as  a  mountain  torrent 
along  a  slatternly  quay.  A  bridge  of  boats  crossing 
the  stream  shook  in  the  rapid  current,  and  a  long  pro 
cession  of  market  carts  passed  slowly  over,  while  a 
cluster  of  scows  waited  in  picturesque  patience  for 
the  draw  to  open. 

They  saw  what  a  beautiful  town  that  was  for  a  boy 
to  grow  up  in,  and  how  many  privileges  it  offered, 
how  many  dangers,  how  many  chances  for  hair 
breadth  escapes.  They  chose  that  Heine  must  often 
have  rushed  shrieking  joyfully  down  that  foul  alley 
to  the  Rhine  with  other  boys;  and  they  easily  found 
a  leaf-strewn  stretch  of  the  sluggish  Diissel,  in  the 
Public  Garden,  where  his  playmate,  the  little  Wilhelm, 
lost  his  life  and  saved  the  kitten's.  They  were  not 
so  sure  of  the  avenue  through  which  the  poet  saw  the 
Emperor  Napoleon  come  riding  on  his  small  white 


552  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

horse  when  he  took  possession  of  the  Elector's  do 
minions.  But  if  it  was  that  where  the  statue  of  the 
Kaiser  Wilhelm  I.  comes  riding  on  a  horse  led  by 
two  Victories,  both  poet  and  hero  are  avenged  there 
on  the  accomplished  fact.  Defeated  and  humiliated 
France  triumphs  in  the  badness  of  that  foolish  denk- 
mal  (one  of  the  worst  in  all  denkmal-ridden  Germany), 
and  the  memory  of  the  singer  whom  the  Ilohenzollern 
family  pride  forbids  honor  in  his  native  place,  is  im 
mortal  in  its  presence. 

'  On  the  way  back  to  their  hotel,  March  made  some 
reflections  upon  the  open  neglect,  throughout  Ger 
many,  of  the  greatest  German  lyrist,  by  which  the 
poet  might  have  profited  if  he  had  been  present.  He 
contended  that  it  was  not  altogether  an  effect  of  Ho- 
henzollern  pride,  which  could  not  suffer  a  joke  or  two 
from  the  arch-humorist;  but  that  Heine  had  said 
things  of  Germany  herself  which  Germans  might  well 
have  found  unpardonable.  He  concluded  that  it 
would  not  do  to  be  perfectly  frank  with  one's  own 
country.  Though,  to  be  sure,  there  would  always  be 
the  question  whether  the  Jew-born  Heine  had  even  a 
step-fatherland  in  the  Germany  he  loved  so  tenderly 
and  mocked  so  pitilessly.  He  had  to  own  that  if  he 
were  a  negro  poet  he  would  not  feel  bound  to  measure 
terms  in  speaking  of  America,  and  he  would  not  feel 
that  his  fame  was  in  her  keeping. 

Upon  the  whole  he  blamed  Heine  less  than  Ger 
many  and  he  accused  her  of  taking  a  shabby  revenge 
in  trying  to  forget  him ;  in  the  heat  of  his  resentment 
that  there  should  be  no  record  of  Heine  in  the  city 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  553 

where  he  was  born,  March  came  near  ignoring  him 
self  the  fact  that  the  poet  Freiligrath  was  also  born 
there.  As  for  the  famous  Dusseldorf  school  of  paint 
ing,  which  once  filled  the  world  with  the  worst  art, 
he  rejoiced  that  it  was  now  so  dead,  and  he  grudged 
the  glance  which  the  beauty  of  the  new  Art  Academy 
extorted  from  him.  It  is  in  the  French  taste,  and  is 
so  far  a  monument  to  the  continuance  in  one  sort  of 
that  French  supremacy,  of  which  in  another  sort  an 
other  denkmal  celebrates  the  overthrow.  Dusseldorf 
is  not  content  with  the  denkmal  of  the  Kaiser  on 
horseback,  with  the  two  Victories  for  grooms ;  there  is 
a  second,  which  the  Marches  found  when  they  strolled 
out  again  late  in  the  afternoon.  It  is  in  the  lovely 
park  which  lies  in  the  heart  of  the  city,  and  they  felt 
in  its  presence  the  only  emotion  of  sympathy  which  the 
many  patriotic  monuments  of  Germany  awakened  in 
them.  It  had  dignity  and  repose,  which  these  never 
had  elsewhere ;  but  it  was  perhaps  not  so  much  for 
the  dying  warrior  and  the  pitying  lion  of  the  sculpture 
that  their  hearts  were  moved  as  for  the  gentle  and 
mournful  humanity  of  the  inscription,  which  dropped 
into  equivalent  English  verse  in  March's  note-book : 

Fame  was  enough  for  the  Victors,  and  glory  and  verdurous 

laurel ; 
Tears  by  their  mothers  wept  founded  this  image  of  stone. 

To  this  they  could  forgive  the  vaunting  record,  on 
the  reverse,  of  the  German  soldiers  who  died  heroes 
in  the  war  with  France,  the  war  with  Austria,  and 
even  the  war  with  poor  little  Denmark ! 

The  morning  had   been  bright  and  warm,  and  it 


554  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

was  just  that  the  afternoon  should  be  dim  and  cold, 
with  a  pale  sun  looking  through  a  September  mist, 
which  seemed  to  deepen  the  seclusion  and  silence  of 
the  forest  reaches ;  for  the  park  was  really  a  forest  of 
the  German  sort,  as  parks  are  apt  to  be  in  Germany. 
But  it  was  beautiful,  and  they  strayed  through  it,  and 
sometimes  sat  down  on  the  benches  in  its  damp  shad 
ows,  and  said  how  much  seemed  to  be  done  in  Ger 
many  for  the  people's  comfort  and  pleasure.  In  what 
was  their  own  explicitly,  as  well  as  what  was  tacitly 
theirs,  they  were  not  so  restricted  as  we  were  at  home, 
and  especially  the  children  seemed  made  fondly  and 
lovingly  free  of  all  public  things.  The  Marches  met 
troops  of  them  in  the  forest,  as  they  strolled  slowly 
back  by  the  winding  Diissel  to  the  gardened  avenue 
leading  to  the  park,  and  they  found  them  everywhere 
gay  and  joyful.  But  their  elders  seemed  subdued, 
and  were  silent.  The  strangers  heard  no  sound  of 
laughter  in  the  streets  of  Diisseldorf,  and  they  saw 
no  smiling  except  on  the  part  of  a  very  old  couple, 
whose  meeting  they  witnessed  and  who  grinned  and 
cackled  at  each  other  like  two  children  as  they  shook 
hands.  Perhaps  they  were  indeed  children  of  that 
sad  second  childhood  which  one  would  rather  not 
blossom  back  into. 

In  America,  life  is  yet  a  joke  with  us,  even  when 
it  is  grotesque  and  shameful,  as  it  so  often  is ;  for  we 
think  we  can  make  it  right  when  we  choose.  But 
there  is  no  joking  in  Germany,  between  the  first  and 
second  childhoods,  unless  behind  closed  doors.  Even 
there,  people  do  not  joke  above  their  breath  about 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  555 

kings  and  emperors.  If  they  joke  about  them  in 
print,  they  take  out  their  laugh  in  jail,  for  the  press 
laws  are  severely  enforced,  and  the  prisons  are  full  of 
able  editors,  serious  as  well  as  comic.  Lese-majesty 
is  a  crime  that  searches  sinners  out  in  every  walk  of 
life,  and  it  is  said  that  in  family  jars  a  husband  some 
times  has  the  last  word  of  his  wife  by  accusing  her  of 
blaspheming  the  sovereign,  and  so  having  her  silenced 
for  three  months  at  least  behind  penitential  bars. 

"Think,"  said  March,  "how  simply  I  could  adjust 
any  differences  of  opinion  between  us  in  Diisseldorf." 

"  Don't !  "  his  wife  implored  with  a  burst  of  feeling 
which  surprised  him.  "  I  want  to  go  home  ! " 

They  had  been  talking  over  their  day,  and  planning 
their  journey  to  Holland  for  the  morrow,  when  it 
came  to  this  outburst  from  her  in  the  last  half-hour 
before  bed  which  they  sat  prolonging  beside  their 
stove. 

"What!  And  not  go  to  Holland?  What  is  to 
become  of  my  after-cure  ? " 

"  Oh,  it's  too  late  for  that,  now.  We've  used  up 
the  month  running  about,  and  tiring  ourselves  to 
death.  I  should  like  to  rest  a  week — to  get  into  my 
berth  on  the  Norumbia  and  rest !  " 

"  I  guess  the  September  gales  would  have  some 
thing  to  say  about  that." 

"  I  would  risk  the  September  gales." 


LXXII. 

IN  the  morning  March  came  home  from  his  bankers 
gay  with  the  day's  provisional  sunshine  in  his  heart, 
and  joyously  expectant  of  his  wife's  pleasure  in  the 
letters  he  was  bringing.  There  was  one  from  each  of 
their  children,  and  there  was  one  from  Fulkerson, 
which  March  opened  and  read  on  the  street,  so  as  to 
intercept  any  unpleasant  news  there  might  be  in  them  ; 
there  were  two  letters  for  Mrs.  March  which  he  knew 
without  opening  were  from  Miss  Triscoe  and  Mrs. 
Adding  respectively ;  Mrs.  Adding's,  from  the  post 
marks,  seemed  to  have  been  following  them  about  for 
some  time. 

"  They're  all  right  at  home,"  he  said.  "  Do  see 
what  those  people  have  been  doing." 

"  I  believe,"  she  said,  taking  a  knife  from  the 
breakfast  tray  beside  her  bed  to  cut  the  envelopes, 
"  that  you've  really  cared  more  about  them  all  along 
than  I  have." 

"  No,  I've  only  been  anxious  to  be  done  with  them." 

She  got  the  letters  open,  and  holding  one  of  them 
up  in  each  hand  she  read  them  impartially  and  simul 
taneously  ;  then  she  flung  them  both  down,  and  turned 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  557 

her  face  into  her  pillow  with  an  impulse  of  her  in 
alienable  girlishness.  "  Well,  it  is  too  silly." 

March  felt  authorized  to  take  them  up  and  read 
them  consecutively  ;  when  he  had  done,  so  he  did  not 
differ  from  his  wife.  In  one  case,  Agatha  had  written 
to  her  dear  Mrs.  March  that  she  and  Burnamy  had 
just  that  evening  become  engaged  ;  Mrs.  Adding,  on 
her  part  owned  a  farther  step,  and  announced  her 
marriage  to  Mr.  Kenby.  Following  immemorial  usage 
in  such  matters  Kenby  had  added  a  postscript  affirm 
ing  his  happiness  in  unsparing  terms,  and  in  Agatha's 
letter  there  was  an  avowal  of  like  effect  from  Burna 
my.  Agatha  hinted  her  belief  that  her  father  would 
soon  come  to  regard  Burnamy  as  she  did ;  and  Mrs. 
Adding  professed  a  certain  humiliation  in  having  real 
ized  that,  after  all  her  misgiving  about  him,  Rose 
seemed  rather  relieved  than  otherwise,  as  if  he  were 
glad  to  have  her  off  his  hands. 

"  Well,"  said  March,  "  with  these  troublesome  af 
fairs  settled,  I  don't  see  what  there  is  to  keep  us  in 
Europe  any  longer,  unless  it's  the  consensus  of  opin 
ion  in  Tom,  Bella,  and  Fulkerson,  that  we  ought  to 
stay  the  winter." 

"  Stay  the  winter !  "  Mrs.  March  rose  from  her 
pillow,  and  clutched  the  home  letters  to  her  from  the 
abeyance  in  which  they  had  fallen  on  the  coverlet 
while  she  was  dealing  with  the  others.  "  What  do 
you  mean  ? " 

"  It  seems  to  have  been  prompted  by  a  hint  you 
let  drop,  which  Tom  has  passed  to  Bella  and  Fulker- 


558  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  Oh,  but  that  was  before  we  left  Carlsbad  ! "  she 
protested,  while  she  devoured  the  letters  with  her 
eyes,  and  continued  to  denounce  the  absurdity  of  the 
writers.  Her  son  and  daughter  both  urged  that  now 
their  father  and  mother  were  over  there,  they  had 
better  stay  as  long  as  they  enjoyed  it,  and  that  they 
certainly  ought  not  to  come  home  without  going  to 
Italy,  where  they  had  first  met,  and  revisiting  the 
places  which  they  had  seen  together  when  they  were 
young  engaged  people :  without  that  their  silver  wed 
ding  journey  would  not  be  complete.  Her  son  said 
that  everything  was  going  well  with  Every  Other 
Week,  and  both  himself  and  Mr.  Fulkerson  thought 
his  father  ought  to  spend  the  winter  in  Italy,  and  get 
a  thorough  rest.  "  Make  a  job  of  it,  March,"  Fulker 
son  wrote,  "  and  have  a  Sabbatical  year  while  you're 
at  it.  You  may  not  get  another." 

"  Well,  I  can  tell  them,"  said  Mrs.  March  indig 
nantly,  "  we  shall  not  do  anything  of  the  kind." 

"  Then  you  didn't  mean  it  ? " 

"  Mean  it !  "  She  stopped  herself  with  a  look  at  her 
husband,  and  asked  gently,  "  Do  you  want  to  stay  ? " 

"  Well,  I  don't  know,"  he  answered  vaguely.  The 
fact  was,  he  was  sick  of  travel  and  of  leisure ;  he  was 
longing  to  be  at  home  and  at  work  again.  But  if 
there  was  to  be  any  self-sacrifice  which  could  be  had, 
as  it  were,  at  a  bargain ;  which  could  be  fairly  divided 
between  them,  and  leave  him  the  self  and  her  the  sac 
rifice,  he  was  too  experienced  a  husband  not  to  see 
the  advantage  of  it,  or  to  refuse  the  merit.  "I 
thought  you  wished  to  stay." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  559 

"  Yes,"  she  sighed,  "  I  did.  It  has  been  very,  very 
pleasant,  and,  if  anything,  I  have  over-enjoyed  myself. 
We  have  gone  romping  through  it  like  two  young 
people,  haven't  we  ?  " 

"  You  have,"  he  assented.  "  I  have  always  felt  the 
weight  of  my  years  in  getting  the  baggage  registered  ; 
they  have  made  the  baggage  weigh  more  every  time." 

"  And  I've  forgotten  mine.  Yes,  I  have.  But  the 
years  haven't  forgotten  me,  Basil,  and  now  I  remem 
ber  them.  I'm  tired.  It  doesn't  seem  as  if  I  could 
ever  get  up.  But  I  dare  say  it's  only  a  mood ;  it  may 
be  only  a  cold;  and  if  you  wish  to  stay,  why — we  will 
think  it  over." 

"  No,  we  won't,  my  dear,"  he  said,  with  a  generous 
shame  for  his  hypocrisy  if  not  with  a  pure  generosity. 
"  I've  got  all  the  good  out  of  it  that  there  was  in  it, 
for  me,  and  I  shouldn't  go  home  any  better  six  months 
hence  than  I  should  now.  Italy  will  keep  for  another 
time,  and  so,  for  the  matter  of  that,  will  Holland." 

"  No,  no  ! "  she  interposed.  "  We  won't  give  up 
Holland,  whatever  we  do.  I  couldn't  go  home  feeling 
that  I  had  kept  you  out  of  your  after-cure ;  and  when 
we  get  there,  no  doubt  the  sea  air  will  bring  me  up 
so  that  I  shall  want  to  go  to  Italy,  too,  again.  Though 
it  seems  so  far  off,  now  !  But  go  and  see  when  the 
afternoon  train  for  the  Hague  leaves,  and  I  shall  be 
ready.  My  mind's  quite  made  up  on  that  point." 

"  What  a  bundle  of  energy ! "  said  her  husband 
laughing  down  at  her. 

He  went  and  asked  about  the  train  to  the  Hague, 
but  only  to  satisfy  a  superficial  conscience ;  for  now 


560  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

he  knew  that  they  were  both  of  one  mind  about  going 
home.  He  also  looked  up  the  trains  for  London,  and 
found  that  they  could  get  there  by  way  of  Ostend  in 
fourteen  hours.  Then  he  went  back  to  the  banker's, 
and  with  the  help  of  the  Paris-New  York  Chronicle 
which  he  found  there,  he  got  the  sailings  of  the  first 
steamers  home.  After  that  he  strolled  about  the 
streets  for  a  last  impression  of  Diisseldorf,  but  it  was 
rather  blurred  by  the  constantly  recurring  pull  of  his 
thoughts  toward  America,  and  he  ended  by  turning 
abruptly  at  a  certain  corner,  and  going  to  his  hotel. 

He  found  his  wife  dressed,  but  fallen  again  on  her 
bed,  beside  which  her  breakfast  stood  still  untasted ; 
her  smile  responded  wanly  to  his  brightness.  "  I'm 
not  well,  my  dear,"  she  said.  "  I  don't  believe  I 
could  get  off  to  the  Hague  this  afternoon." 

"  Could  you  to  Liverpool  ?  "  he  returned. 

"To  Liverpool?"  she  gasped.  "What  do  you 
mean  ? " 

"  Merely  that  the  Cupania  is  sailing  on  the  twenti 
eth,  and  Pve  telegraphed  to  know  if  we  can  get  a 
room.  I'm  afraid  it  won't  be  a  good  one,  but  she's 
the  first  boat  out,  and — " 

"  No,  indeed,  we  won't  go  to  Liverpool,  and  we  will 
never  go  home  till  you've  had  your  after-cure  in  Hol 
land."  She  was  very  firm  in  this,  but  she  added, 
"We  will  stay  another  night,  here,  and  go  to  the 
Hague  to-morrow.  Sit  down,  and  let  us  talk  it  over. 
Where  were  we  ?  " 

She  lay  down  on  the  sofa,  and  he  put  a  shawl  over 
her.  "  We  were  just  starting  for  Liverpool." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  561 

"  No,  no  we  weren't !  Don't  say  such  things,  dear 
est  !  I  want  you  to  help  me  sum  it  all  up.  You 
think  it's  been  a  success,  don't  you  ? " 

"  As  a  cure  ?  " 

"  No,  as  a  silver  wedding  journey  ?  " 

"  Perfectly  howling." 

"  I  do  think  we've  had  a  good  time.  I  never  ex 
pected  to  enjoy  myself  so  much  again  in  the  world. 
I  didn't  suppose  I  should  ever  take  so  much  interest 
in  anything.  It  shows  that  when  we  choose  to  get 
out  of  our  rut  we  shall  always  find  life  as  fresh  and 
delightful  as  ever.  There  is  nothing  to  prevent  our 
coming  any  year,  now  that  Tom's  shown  himself  so 
capable,  and  having  another  silver  wedding  journey. 
I  don't  like  to  think  of  it's  being  confined  to  Germany 
quite." 

'•  Oh,  I  don't  know.  We  can  always  talk  of  it  as 
our  German-Silver  Wedding  Journey." 

"  That's  true.  But  nobody  would  understand  now- 
a-days  what  you  meant  by  German-silver  ;  it's  perfectly 
gone  out.  How  ugly  it  was !  A  sort  of  greasy  yel 
lowish  stuff,  always  getting  worn  through ;  I  believe 
it  was  made  worn  through.  Aunt  Mary  had  a  castor 
of  it,  that  I  can  remember  when  I  was  a  child  ;  it  went 
into  the  kitchen  long  before  I  grew  up.  Would  a 
joke  like  that  console  you  for  the  loss  of  Italy  ? " 

"  It  would  go  far  to  do  it.  And  as  a  German-Sil 
ver  Wedding  Journey,  it's  certainly  been  very  com 
plete." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"  It's  given  us  a  representative  variety  of  German 


562  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

cities.  First  we  had  Hamburg,  you  know,  a  great 
modern  commercial  centre." 

"  Yes  !     Go  on  !  " 

"  Then  we  had  Leipsic,  the  academic." 

"  Yes  ! " 

"  Then  Carlsbad,  the  supreme  type  of  a  German 
health  resort ;  then  Nuremberg,  the  mediaeval ;  then 
Anspach,  the  extinct  princely  capital ;  then  Wiirz- 
burg,  the  ecclesiastical  rococo ;  then  Weimar,  for  the 
literature  of  a  great  epoch  ;  then  imperial  Berlin  ;  then 
Frankfort,  the  memory  of  the  old  free  city ;  then  Diis- 
seldorf,  the  centre  of  the  most  poignant  personal  in 
terest  in  the  world —  I  don't  see  how  we  could  have 
done  better,  if  we'd  planned  it  all,  and  not  acted  from 
successive  impulses." 

"  It's  been  grand  ;  it's  been  perfect !  As  German- 
Silver  Wedding  Journey  it's  perfect — it  seems  as  if  it 
had  been  ordered  !  But  I  will  never  let  you  give  up 
Holland !  No,  we  will  go  this  afternoon,  and  when  I 
get  to  Scheveningen,  I'll  go  to  bed,  and  stay  there, 
till  you've  completed  your  after-cure." 

"  Do  you  think  that  will  be  wildly  gay  for  the  con 
valescent  ? " 

She  suddenly  began  to  cry.  "Oh,  dearest,  what 
shall  we  do?  I  feel  perfectly  broken  down.  I'm 
afraid  I'm  going  to  be  sick — and  away  from  home ! 
How  could  you  ever  let  me  overdo,  so?"  She  put 
her  handkerchief  to  her  eyes,  and  turned  her  face  into 
the  sofa  pillow. 

This  was  rather  hard  upon  him,  whom  her  vivid 
energy  and  inextinguishable  interest  had  not  permitted 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  563 

a  moment's  respite  from  pleasure  since  they  left  Carls 
bad.     But  he  had  been  married  too  long  not  to  un 
derstand  that  her  blame  of  him  was  only  a  form  of 
self-reproach  for  her  own  self-forgetfulness.     She  had 
not  remembered  that  she  was  no  longer  young  till  she 
had  come  to  what   he  saw  was  a  nervous  collapse. 
The  fact  had  its  pathos  and  its  poetry  which  no  one 
could  have  felt  more  keenly  than  he.     If  it  also  had 
its  inconvenience  and  its  danger  he  realized  these  too. 
"  Isabel,"  he  said,  "  we  are  going  home." 
"  Very  well,  then  it  will  be  your  doing." 
"  Quite.     Do  you  think  you  could  stand  it  as  far 
as  Cologne  ?     We  get  the  sleeping-car  there,  and  you 
can  lie  down  the  rest  of  the  way  to  Ostend." 

"  This  afternoon  ?  Why  I'm  perfectly  strong  ;  it's 
merely  my  nerves  that  are  gone.'*  She  sat  up,  and 
wiped  her  eyes.  "  But  Basil !  If  you're  doing  this 
for  me — " 

"  I'm  doing  it  for  myself,"  said  March,  as  he  went 
out  of  the  room. 

She  stood  the  journey  perfectly  well,  and  in  the 
passage  to  Dover  she  suffered  so  little  from  the  rough 
weather  that  she  was  an  example  to  many  robust 
matrons  who  filled  the  ladies'  cabin  with  the  noise  of 
their  anguish  during  the  night.  She  would  have  in 
sisted  upon  taking  the  first  train  up  to  London,  if 
March  had  not  represented  that  this  would  not  expe 
dite  the  sailing  of  the  Cupania,  and  that  she  might 
as  well  stay  the  forenoon  at  the  convenient  railway 
hotel,  and  rest.  It  was  not  quite  his  ideal  of  repose 
that  the  first  people  they  saw  in  the  coffee-room  when 


564          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

they  went  to  breakfast  should  be  Kenby  and  Rose 
Adding,  who  were  having  their  tea  and  toast  and  eggs 
together  in  the  greatest  apparent  good-fellowship. 
He  saw  his  wife  shrink  back  involuntarily  from  the 
encounter,  but  this  was  only  to  gather  force  for  it; 
and  the  next  moment  she  was  upon  them  in  all  the 
joy  of  the  surprise.  Then  March  allowed  himself  to 
be  as  glad  as  the  others  both  seemed,  and  he  shook 
hands  with  Kenby  while  his  wife  kissed  Rose ;  and 
they  all  talked  at  once.  In  the  confusion  of  tongues 
it  was  presently  intelligible  that  Mrs.  Kenby  was  go 
ing  to  be  down  in  a  few  minutes ;  and  Kenby  took 
March  into  his  confidence  with  a  smile  which  was  al 
most  a  wink  in  explaining  that  he  knew  how  it  was 
with  the  ladies.  He  said  that  Rose  and  he  usually 
got  down  to  breakfast  first,  and  when  he  had  listened 
inattentively  to  Mrs.  March's  apology  for  being  on 
her  way  home,  he  told  her  that  she  was  lucky  not  to 
have  gone  to  Scheveningen,  where  she  and  March 
would  have  frozen  to  death.  He  said  that  they  were 
going  to  spend  September  at  a  little  place  on  the  Eng 
lish  coast,  near  by,  where  he  had  been  the  day  before 
with  Rose  to  look  at  lodgings,  and  where  you  could 
bathe  all  through  the  month.  He  was  not  surprised 
that  the  Marches  were  going  home,  and  said,  Well, 
that  was  their  original  plan,  wasn't  it  ? 

Mrs.  Kenby,  appearing  upon  this,  pretended  to 
know  better,  after  the  outburst  of  joyful  greeting  with 
the  Marches;  and  intelligently  remined  Kenby  that  he 
knew  the  Marches  had  intended  to  pass  the  winter  in 
Paris.  She  was  looking  extremely  pretty,  but  she 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  565 

wished  only  to  make  them  see  how  well  Rose  was 
looking,  and  she  put  her  arm  round  his  shoulders  as 
she  spoke.  Scheveningen  had  done  wonders  for  him, 
but  it  was  fearfully  cold  there,  and  now  they  were 
expecting  everything  from  Westgate,  where  she  ad 
vised  March  to  come,  too,  for  his  after-cure :  she  rec 
ollected  in  time  to  say,  She  forgot  they  were  on  their 
way  home.  She  added  that  she  did  not  know  when 
she  should  return ;  she  was  merely  a  passenger,  now ; 
she  left  everything  to  the  men  of  the  family.  She 
had,  in  fact,  the  air  of  having  thrown  off  every  re 
sponsibility,  but  in  supremacy,  not  submission.  She 
was  always  ordering  Kenby  about ;  she  sent  him  for 
her  handkerchief,  and  her  rings  which  she  had  left 
either  in  the  tray  of  her  trunk,  or  on  the  pin-cushion, 
or  on  the  wash-stand  or  somewhere,  and  forbade  him 
to  come  back  without  them.  He  asked  for  her  keys, 
and  then  with  a  joyful  scream  she  owned  that  she  had 
left  the  door-key  in  the  door  and  the  whole  bunch 
of  trunk-keys  in  her  trunk ;  and  Kenby  treated  it  all 
as  the  greatest  joke  ;  Rose,  too,  seemed  to  think  that 
Kenby  would  make  everything  come  right,  and  he  had 
lost  that  look  of  anxiety  which  he  used  to  have ;  at 
the  most  he  showed  a  friendly  sympathy  for  Kenby, 
for  whose  sake  he  seemed  mortified  at  her.  He  was 
unable  to  regard  his  mother  as  the  delightful  joke 
which  she  appeared  to  Kenby,  but  that  was  merely 
temperamental ;  and  he  was  never  distressed  except 
when  she  behaved  with  unreasonable  caprice  at  Ken- 
by's  cost. 

As  for  Kenby  himself  he  betrayed  no  dissatisfac- 


566  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

tion  with  his  fate  to  March.  He  perhaps  no  longer 
regarded  his  wife  as  that  strong  character  which  he 
had  sometimes  wearied  March  by  celebrating ;  but  she 
was  still  the  most  brilliant  intelligence,  and  her  charm 
seemed  only  to  have  grown  with  his  perception  of  its 
wilful  limitations.  He  did  not  want  to  talk  about  her 
so  much ;  he  wanted  rather  to  talk  about  Rose,  his 
health,  his  education,  his  nature,  and  what  was  best  to 
do  for  him.  The  two  were  on  terms  of  a  confidence 
and  affection  which  perpetually  amused  Mrs.  Kenby, 
but  which  left  the  sympathetic  witness  nothing  to  de 
sire  in  their  relation. 

They  all  came  to  the  train  when  the  Marches  started 
up  to  London,  and  stood  waving  to  them  as  they 
pulled  out  of  the  station.  "  Well,  I  can't  see  but 
thafs  all  right,"  he  said  as  he  sank  back  in  his  seat 
with  a  sigh  of  relief.  "  I  never  supposed  we  should 
get  out  of  their  marriage  half  so  well,  and  I  don't  feel 
that  you  quite  made  the  match  either,  my  dear." 

She  was  forced  to  agree  with  him  that  the  Kenbys 
seemed  happy  together,  and  that  there  was  nothing 
to  fear  for  Rose  in  their  happiness.  He  would  be  as 
tenderly  cared  for  by  Kenby  as  he  could  have  been 
by  his  mother,  and  far  more  judiciously.  She  owned 
that  she  had  trembled  for  him  till  she  had  seen  them 
all  together ;  and  now  she  should  never  tremble  again. 

"  Well  ? "  March  prompted,  at  a  certain  inconclu- 
siveness  in  her  tone  rather  than  her  words. 

"  Well,  you  can  see  that  it  isn't  ideal." 

"  Why  isn't  it  ideal  ?  I  suppose  you  think  that  the 
marriage  of  Burnamy  and  Agatha  Triscoe  will  be 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  567 

ideal,  with  their  ignorances  and  inexperiences  and  il 
lusions." 

"  Yes  !  It's  the  illusions :  no  marriage  can  be  per 
fect  without  them,  and  at  their  age  the  Kenbys  can't 
have  them." 

"  Kenby  is  a  solid  mass  of  illusion.  And  I  believe 
that  people  can  go  and  get  as  many  new  illusions  as 
they  want,  whenever  they've  lost  their  old  ones." 

"  Yes,  but  the  new  illusions  won't  wear  so  well ; 
and  in  marriage  you  want  illusions  that  will  last.  No ; 
you  needn't  talk  to  me.  It's  all  very  well,  but  it  isn't 
ideal." 

March  laughed.     "  Ideal !     What  is  ideal  ? " 

"  Going  home!'1''  she  said  with  such  passion  that  he 
had  not  the  heart  to  point  out  that  they  were  merely 
returning  to  their  old  duties,  cares  and  pains,  with  the 
worn-out  illusion  that  these  would  be  altogether  dif 
ferent  when  they  took  them  up  again. 


LXXIII. 

IN  fulfilment  of  another  ideal  Mrs.  March  took 
straightway  to  her  berth  when  she  got  on  board  the 
Cupania,  and  to  her  husband's  admiration  she  re 
mained  there  till  the  day  before  they  reached  New 
York.  Her  theory  was  that  the  complete  rest  would 
do  more  than  anything  else  to  calm  her  shaken  nerves ; 
and  she  did  not  admit  into  her  calculations  the 
chances  of  adverse  weather  which  March  would  not 
suggest  as  probable  in  the  last  week  in  September. 
The  event  justified  her  unconscious  faith.  The  ship's 
run  was  of  unparalled  swiftness,  even  for  the  Cupania, 
and  of  unparalled  smoothness.  For  days  the  sea  was 
as  sleek  as  oil ;  the  racks  were  never  on  the  tables 
once ;  the  voyage  was  of  the  sort  which  those  who 
make  it  no  more  believe  in  at  the  time  than  those 
whom  they  afterwards  weary  in  boasting  of  it. 

The  ship  was  very  full,  but  Mrs.  March  did  not 
show  the  slightest  curiosity  to  know  who  her  fellow- 
passengers  were.  She  said  that  she  wished  to  be  let 
perfectly  alone,  even  by  her  own  emotions,  and  for 
this  reason  she  forbade  March  to  bring  her  a  list  of 
the  passengers  till  after  they  had  left  Queenstown  lest 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  569 

it  should  be  too  exciting.  He  did  not  take  the  trou 
ble  to  look  it  up,  therefore ;  and  the  first  night  out  he 
saw  no  one  whom  he  knew  at  dinner;  but  the  next 
morning  at  breakfast  he  found  himself  to  his  great 
satisfaction  at  the  same  table  with  the  Eltwins.  They 
were  so  much  at  ease  with  him  that  even  Mrs.  Eltwin 
took  part  in  the  talk,  and  told  him  how  they  had 
spent  the  time  of  her  husband's  rigorous  after-cure  in 
Switzerland,  and  now  he  was  going  home  much  better 
than  they  had  expected.  She  said  they  had  rather 
thought  of  spending  the  winter  in  Europe,  but  had 
given  it  up  because  they  were  both  a  little  homesick. 
March  confessed  that  this  was  exactly  the  case  with 
his  wife  and  himself;  and  he  had  to  add  that  Mrs. 
March  was  not  very  well  otherwise,  and  he  should  be 
glad  to  be  at  home  on  her  account.  The  recurrence 
of  the  word  home  seemed  to  deepen  Eltwin's  habitual 
gloom,  and  Mrs.  Eltwin  hastened  to  leave  the  subject 
of  their  return  for  inquiry  into  Mrs.  March's  con 
dition;  her  interest  did  not  so  far  overcome  her 
shyness  that  she  ventured  to  propose  a  visit  to  her ; 
and  March  found  that  the  fact  of  the  Eltwins'  pres 
ence  on  board  did  not  agitate  his  wife.  It  seemed 
rather  to  comfort  her,  and  she  said  she  hoped  he 
would  see  all  he  could  of  the  poor  old  things.  She 
asked  if  he  had  met  any  one  else  he  knew,  and  he  was 
able  to  tell  her  that  there  seemed  to  be  a  good  many 
swells  on  board,  and  this  cheered  her  very  much, 
though  he  did  not  know  them ;  she  liked  to  be  near 
the  rose,  though  it  was  not  a  flower  that  she  really 
cared  for. 


570  THEIR   SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

She  did  not  ask  who  the  swells  were,  and  March 
took  no  trouble  to  find  out.  He  took  no  trouble  to 
get  a  passenger-list,  and  he  had  the  more  trouble  when 
he  tried  at  last;  the  lists  seemed  to  have  all  vanished, 
as  they  have  a  habit  of  doing,  after  the  first  day ;  the 
one  that  he  made  interest  for  with  the  head  steward 
was  a  second-hand  copy,  and  had  no  one  he  knew  in 
it  but  the  Eltwins.  The  social  solitude,  however,  was 
rather  favorable  to  certain  other  impressions.  There 
seemed  even  more  elderly  people  than  there  were  on 
the  Norumbia  ;  the  human  atmosphere  was  gray  and 
sober ;  there  was  nothing  of  the  gay  expansion  of  the 
outward  voyage ;  there  was  little  talking  or  laughing 
among  those  autumnal  men  who  were  going  seriously 
and  anxiously  home,  with  faces  fiercely  set  for  the 
coming  grapple,  or  necks  meekly  bowed  for  the  yoke. 
They  had  eaten  their  cake,  and  it  had  been  good,  but 
there  remained  a  discomfort  in  the  digestion.  They 
sat  about  in  silence,  and  March  fancied  that  the  flown 
summer  was  as  dreamlike  to  each  of  them  as  it  now 
was  to  him.  He  hated  to  be  of  their  dreary  company, 
but  spiritually  he  knew  that  he  was  of  it;  and  he 
vainly  turned  to  cheer  himself  with  the  younger  pas 
sengers.  Some  matrons  who  went  about  clad  in  furs 
amused  him,  for  they  must  have  been  unpleasantly 
warm  in  their  jackets  and  boas;  nothing  but  the  hope 
of  being  able  to  tell  the  customs  inspector  with  a  good 
conscience  that  the  things  had  been  worn,  would  have 
sustained  one  lady  draped  from  head  to  foot  in  As 
trakhan. 

They  were  all  getting  themselves  ready  for  the  fray 


THEIR   SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  571 

or  the  play  of  the  coming  winter ;  but  there  seemed 
nothing  joyous  in  the  preparation.  There  were  many 
young  girls,  as  there  always  are  everywhere,  but  there 
were  not  many  young  men,  and  such  as  there  were 
kept  to  the  smoking-room.  There  was  no  sign  of 
flirtation  among  them ;  he  would  have  given  much  for 
a  moment  of  the  pivotal  girl,  to  see  whether  she  could 
have  brightened  those  gloomy  surfaces  with  her  im 
partial  lamp.  March  wished  that  he  could  have 
brought  some  report  from  the  outer  world  to  cheer 
his  wife,  as  he  descended  to  their  state-room.  They 
had  taken  what  they  could  get  at  the  eleventh  hour, 
and  they  had  got  no  such  ideal  room  as  they  had  in 
the  Norumbia.  It  was,  as  Mrs.  March  graphically 
said,  a  basement  room.  It  was  on  the  north  side  of 
the  ship,  which  is  a  cold  exposure,  and  if  there  had 
been  any  sun  it  could  not  have  got  into  their  window, 
which  was  half  the  time  under  water.  The  green 
waves,  laced  with  foam,  hissed  as  they  ran  across  the 
port ;  and  the  electric  fan  in  the  corridor  moaned  like 
the  wind  in  a  gable. 

He  felt  a  sinking  of  the  heart  as  he  pushed  the 
state-room  door  open,  and  looked  at  his  wife  lying 
with  her  face  turned  to  the  wall ;  and  he  was  going  to 
withdraw,  thinking  her  asleep,  when  she  said  quietly, 
"  Are  we  going  down  ?  " 

"  Not  that  I  know  of,"  he  answered  with  a  gayety 
he  did  not  feel.  "  But  I'll  ask  the  head  steward." 

She  put  out  her  hand  behind  her  for  him  to  take, 
and  clutched  his  fingers  convulsively.  "  If  I'm  never 
any  better,  you  will  always  remember  this  happy  sum- 


572  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

mer,  won't  you  ?  Oh,  it's  been  such  a  happy  summer  ! 
It  has  been  one  long  joy,  one  continued  triumph ! 
But  it  was  too  late ;  we  were  too  old ;  and  it's  broken 
me." 

The  time  had  been  when  he  would  have  attempted 
comfort ;  when  he  would  have  tried  mocking  ;  but  that 
time  was  long  past ;  he  could  only  pray  inwardly  for 
some  sort  of  diversion,  but  what  it  was  to  be  in  their 
barren  circumstance  he  was  obliged  to  leave  altogether 
to  Providence.  He  ventured,  pending  an  answer  to 
his  prayers  upon  the  question,  "  Don't  you  think  I'd 
better  see  the  doctor,  and  get  you  some  sort  of  tonic  ? " 

She  suddenly  turned  and  faced  him.  "The  doc 
tor  !  Why,  I'm  not  sick,  Basil !  If  you  can  see  the 
purser  and  get  our  rooms  changed,  or  do  something 
to  stop  those  waves  from  slapping  against  that  horri 
ble  blinking  one-eyed  window,  you  can  save  my  life ; 
but  no  tonic  is  going  to  help  me." 

She  turned  her  face  from  him  again,  and  buried  it 
in  the  bedclothes,  while  he  looked  desperately  at  the 
racing  waves,  and  the  port  that  seemed  to  open  and 
shut  like  a  weary  eye. 

"  Oh,  go  away  !  "  she  implored.  "  I  shall  be  better 
presently,  but  if  you  stand  there  like  that —  Go  and 
see  if  you  can't  get  some  other  room,  where  I  needn't 
feel  as  if  I  were  drowning,  all  the  way  over." 

He  obeyed,  so  far  as  to  go  away  at  once,  and  hav 
ing  once  started,  he  did  not  stop  short  of  the  purser's 
office.  He  made  an  excuse  of  getting  greenbacks  for 
some  English  bank-notes,  and  then  he  said  casually 
that  he  supposed  there  would  be  no  chance  of  having 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  573 

his  room  on  the  lower  deck  changed  for  something  a 
little  less  intimate  with  the  sea.  The  purser  was  not 
there  to  take  the  humorous  view,  but  he  conceived 
that  March  wanted  something  higher  up,  and  he  was 
able  to  offer  him  a  room  of  those  on  the  promenade 
where  he  had  seen  swells  going  in  and  out,  for  six 
hundred  dollars.  March  did  not  blench,  but  said  he 
would  get  his  wife  to  look  at  it  with  him,  and  then  he 
went  out  somewhat  dizzily  to  take  counsel  with  him 
self  how  he  should  put  the  matter  to  her.  She  would 
be  sure  to  ask  what  the  price  of  the  new  room  would 
be,  and  he  debated  whether  to  take  it  and  tell  her 
some  kindly  lie  about  it,  or  trust  to  the  bracing  effect 
of  the  sum  named  in  helping  restore  the  lost  balance 
of  her  nerves.  He  was  not  so  rich  that  he  could 
throw  six  hundred  dollars  away,  but  there  might  be 
worse  things;  and  he  walked  up  and  down  think 
ing.  All  at  once  it  flashed  upon  him  that  he  had 
better  see  the  doctor,  anyway,  and  find  out  whether 
there  were  not  some  last  hope  in  medicine  before  he 
took  the  desperate  step  before  him.  He  turned  in 
half  his  course,  and  ran  into  a  lady  who  had  just 
emerged  from  the  door  of  the  promenade  laden  with 
wraps,  and  who  dropped  them  all  and  clutched  him 
to  save  herself  from  falling. 

"  Why,  Mr.  March  !  "  she  shrieked. 

"  Miss  Triscoe  !  "  he  returned,  in  the  astonishment 
which  he  shared  with  her  to  the  extent  of  letting  the 
shawls  he  had  knocked  from  her  hold  lie  between 
them  till  she  began  to  pick  them  up  herself.  Then 
he  joined  her  and  in  the  relief  of  their  common  occu- 


574  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING  JOURNEY. 

pation  they  contrived  to  possess  each  other  of  the 
reason  of  their  presence  on  the  same  boat.  She  had 
sorrowed  over  Mrs.  March's  sad  state,  and  he  had 
grieved  to  hear  that  her  father  was  going  home  be 
cause  he  was  not  at  all  well,  before  they  found  the 
general  stretched  out  in  his  steamer-chair,  and  wait 
ing  with  a  grim  impatience  for  his  daughter. 

"  But  how  is  it  you're  not  in  the  passenger-list  ? " 
he  inquired  of  them  both,  and  Miss  Triscoe  explained 
that  they  had  taken  their  passage  at  the  last  moment, 
too  late,  she  supposed,  to  get  into  the  list.  They  were 
in  London,  and  had  run  down  to  Liverpool  on  the 
chance  of  getting  berths.  Beyond  this  she  was  not 
definite,  and  there  was  an  absence  of  Burnamy  not 
only  from  her  company  but  from  her  conversation 
which  mystified  March  through  all  his  selfish  preoc 
cupations  with  his  wife.  She  was  a  girl  who  had  her 
reserves,  but  for  a  girl  who  had  so  lately  and  raptur 
ously  written  them  of  her  engagement,  there  was  a 
silence  concerning  her  betrothed  that  had  almost  a 
positive  quality.  With  his  longing  to  try  Miss  Tris 
coe  upon  Mrs.  March's  malady  as  a  remedial  agent,  he 
had  now  the  desire  to  try  Mrs.  March  upon  Miss 
Triscoe's  mystery  as  a  solvent.  She  stood  talking  to 
him,  and  refusing  to  sit  down  and  be  wrapped  up  in 
the  chair  next  her  father.  She  said  that  if  he  were  go 
ing  to  ask  Mrs.  March  to  let  her  come  to  her,  it  would 
not  be  worth  while  to  sit  down ;  and  he  hurried  below. 

"  Did  you  get  it  ?  "  asked  his  wife,  without  looking 
round,  but  not  so  apathetically  as  before. 

"Oh,  yes.       That's  all  right.       But  now,  Isabel, 


THEIR    SILVER   WEDDING    JOURNEY.  575 

there's  something  I've  got  to  tell  you.  You'd  find  it 
out,  and  you'd  better  know  it  at  once." 

She  turned  her  face,  and  asked  sternly,  "  What  is 
it?" 

Then  he  said,  with  an  almost  equal  severity,  "  Miss 
Triscoe  is  on  board.  Miss  Triscoe — and — her — father. 
She  wishes  to  come  down  and  see  you." 

Mrs.  March  sat  up  and  began  to  twist  her  hair  into 
shape.  "  And  Burnamy  ?  " 

"  There  is  no  Burnamy  physically,  or  so  far  as  I 
can  make  out,  spiritually.  She  didn't  mention  him, 
and  I  talked  at  least  five  minutes  with  her." 

"  Hand  me  my  dressing-sack,"  said  Mrs.  March, 
"  and  poke  those  things  on  the  sofa  under  the  berth. 
Shut  up  that  wash-stand,  and  pull  the  curtain  across 
that  hideous  window.  Stop !  Throw  those  towels 
into  your  berth.  Put  my  shoes,  and  your  slippers 
into  the  shoe-bag  on  the  door.  Slip  the  brushes  into 
that  other  bag.  Beat  the  dint  out  of  the  sofa  cushion 
that  your  head  has  made.  Now  ! " 

"  Then — then  you  will  see  her  ? " 

"  See  her  !  " 

Her  voice  was  so  terrible  that  he  fled  before  it,  and 
he  returned  with  Miss  Triscoe  in  a  dreamlike  simul 
taneity.  He  remembered,  as  he  led  the  way  into  his 
corridor,  to  apologize  for  bringing  her  down  into  a 
basement  room. 

"Oh,  we're  in  the  basement,  too;  it  was  all  we 
could  get,"  she  said  in  words  that  ended  within  the 
state-room  he  opened  to  her.  Then  he  went  back  and 
took  her  chair  and  wraps  beside  her  father. 


576  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

He  let  the  general  himself  lead  the  way  up  to  his 
health,  which  he  was  not  slow  in  reaching,  and  was 
not  quick  in  leaving.  He  reminded  March  of  the 
state  he  had  seen  him  in  at  Wiirzburg,  and  he  said  it 
had  gone  from  bad  to  worse  with  him.  At  Weimar 
he  had  taken  to  his  bed  and  merely  escaped  from  it 
with  his  life.  Then  they  had  tried  Scheveningen  for 
a  week,  where,  he  said  in  a  tone  of  some  injury,  they 
had  rather  thought  they  might  find  them,  the  Marches. 
The  air  had  been  poison  to  him,  and  they  had  come 
over  to  England  with  some  notion  of  Bournemouth ; 
but  the  doctor  in  London  had  thought  not,  and  urged 
their  going  home.  "  All  Europe  is  damp,  you  know, 
and  dark  as  a  pocket  in  winter,"  he  ended. 

There  had  been  nothing  about  Burnamy,  and  March 
decided  that  he  must  wait  to  see  his  wife  if  he  wished 
to  know  anything,  when  the  general,  who  had  been 
silent,  twisted  his  head  towards  him,  and  said  without 
regard  to  the  context,  "  It  was  complicated,  at  Wei 
mar,  by  that  young  man  in  the  most  devilish  way. 
Did  my  daughter  write  to  Mrs.  March  about —  Well 
it  came  to  nothing,  after  all ;  and  I  don't  understand 
how,  to  this  day.  I  doubt  if  they  do.  It  was  some 
sort  of  quarrel,  I  suppose.  I  wasn't  consulted  in  the 
matter  either  way.  It  appears  that  parents  are  not 
consulted  in  these  trifling  affairs,  nowadays."  He 
had  married  his  daughter's  mother  in  open  defiance 
of  her  father ;  but  in  the  glare  of  his  daughter's  wil- 
fulness  this  fact  had  whitened  into  pious  obedience. 
"  I  dare  say  I  shall  be  told,  by-and-by,  and  shall  be 
expected  to  approve  of  the  result." 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  577 

A  fancy  possessed  March  that  by  operation  of  tem 
peramental  laws  General  Triscoe  was  no  more  satisfied 
with  Burnarny's  final  rejection  than  with  his  accept 
ance.  If  the  engagement  was  ever  to  be  renewed,  it 
might  be  another  thing ;  but  as  it  stood,  March  divined 
a  certain  favor  for  the  young  man  in  the  general's  at 
titude.  But  the  affair  was  altogether  too  delicate  for 
comment ;  the  general's  aristocratic  frankness  in  deal 
ing  with  it  might  have  gone  farther  if  his  knowledge 
had  been  greater ;  but  in  any  case  March  did  not  see 
how  he  could  touch  it.  He  could  only  say,  He  had 
always  liked  Burnamy,  himself. 

He  had  his  good  qualities,  the  general  owned.  He 
did  not  profess  to  understand  the  young  men  of  our 
time ;  but  certainly  the  fellow  had  the  instincts  of  a 
gentleman.  He  had  nothing  to  say  against  him,  un 
less  in  that  business  with  that  man — what  was  his 
name? 

"  Stoller  ?  "  March  prompted.  "  I  don't  excuse  him 
in  that,  but  I  don't  blame  him  so  much,  either.  If 
punishment  means  atonement,  he  had  the  opportunity 
of  making  that  right  very  suddenly,  and  if  pardon 
means  expunction,  then  I  don't  see  why  that  offence 
hasn't  been  pretty  well  wiped  out. 

"  Those  things  are  not  so  simple  as  they  used  to 
seem,"  said  the  general,  with  a  seriousness  beyond  his 
wont  in  things  that  did  not  immediately  concern  his 
own  comfort  or  advantage. 
2— K 


LXXVI. 

IN  the  mean  time  Mrs.  March  and  Miss  Triscoe 
were  discussing  another  offence  of  Burnamy's. 

"  It  wasn't,"  said  the  girl,  excitedly,  after  a  plunge 
through  all  the  minor  facts  to  the  heart  of  the  matter, 
"  that  he  hadn't  a  perfect  right  to  do  it,  if  he  thought 
I  didn't  care  for  him.  I  had  refused  him  at  Carlsbad, 
and  I  had  forbidden  him  to  speak  to  me  about — on 
the  subject.  But  that  was  merely  temporary,  and  he 
ought  to  have  known  it.  He  ought  to  have  known 
that  I  couldn't  accept  him,  on  the  spur  of  the  moment, 
that  way ;  and  when  he  had  come  back,  after  going 
away  in  disgrace,  before  he  had  done  anything  to  jus 
tify  himself.  I  couldn't  have  kept  my  self-respect ; 
and  as  it  was  I  had  the  greatest  difficulty ;  and  he 
ought  to  have  seen  it.  Of  course  he  said  afterwards 
that  he  didn't  see  it.  But  when — when  I  found  out 
that  she  had  been  in  Weimar,  and  that  all  the  time, 
while  I  had  been  suffering  there  in  Carlsbad  and 
Wiirzburg,  and  longing  to  see  him,  and  tell  him — let 
him  know  how  I  was  really  feeling — he  was  flirting 
with  that — that  girl,  then  I  saw  that  he  was  a  false 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  579 

nature,  and  I  determined  to  put  an  end  to  everything. 
And  that  is  what  I  did;  and  I  shall  always  think  I 
did  right;  and — and — " 

The  rest  was  lost  in  Agatha's  handkerchief,  which 
she  put  up  to  her  eyes.  Mrs.  March  watched  her 
from  her  pillow  keeping  the  girl's  unoccupied  hand  in 
her  own,  and  softly  pressing  it  till  the  storm  was  past 
sufficiently  to  allow  her  to  be  heard. 

Then  she  said,  "  Men  are  very  strange — the  best  of 
them.  And  from  the  very  fact  that  he  was  disap 
pointed,  he  would  be  all  the  more  apt  to  rush  into  a 
flirtation  with  somebody  else." 

Miss  Triscoe  took  down  her  handkerchief  from  a 
face  that  had  certainly  not  been  beautified  by  grief. 
"  I  didn't  blame  him  for  the  flirting ;  or  not  so  much. 
It  was  his  keeping  it  from  me  afterwards.  He  ought 
to  have  told  me  the  very  first  instant  we  were  engaged. 
But  he  didn't.  He  let  it  go  on,  and  if  I  hadn't  hap 
pened  on  that  bouquet  I  might  never  have  known 
anything  about  it.  That  is  what  I  mean  by  a  false 
nature.  I  wouldn't  have  minded  his  deceiving  me ;  but 
to  let  me  deceive  myself —  Oh,  it  was  too  much  !  " 

Agatha  hid  her  face  in  her  handkerchief  again.  She 
was  perching  on  the  edge  of  the  berth,  and  Mrs.  March 
said,  with  a  glance,  which  she  did  not  see,  toward  the 
sofa,  "  I'm  afraid  that's  rather  a  hard  seat  for  you. 
Won't  you — " 

"  Oh,  no,  thank  you  !  I'm  perfectly  comfortable — 
I  like  it — if  you  don't  mind  ?  " 

Mrs.  March  pressed  her  hand  for  answer,  and  after 
another  little  delay,  sighed  and  said,  "They  are  not 


580          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

like  us,  and  we  cannot  help  it.  They  are  more  tem 
porizing." 

"  How  do  you  mean  ? "     Agatha  unmasked  again. 

"  They  can  bear  to  keep  things  better  than  we  can, 
and  they  trust  to  time  to  bring  them  right,  or  to  come 
right  of  themselves." 

"I  don't  think  Mr.  March  would  trust  things  to 
come  right  of  themselves  !  "  said  Agatha  in  indignant 
accusal  of  Mrs.  March's  sincerity. 

"  Ah,  that's  just  what  he  would  do,  my  dear,  and 
has  done,  all  along ;  and  I  don't  believe  we  could  have 
lived  through  without  it:  we  should  have  quarrelled 
ourselves  into  the  grave  !  " 

"  Mrs.  March !  " 

"  Yes,  indeed.  I  don't  mean  that  he  would  ever 
deceive  me.  But  he  would  let  things  go  on,  and 
hope  that  somehow  they  would  come  right  without 
any  fuss." 

"  Do  you  mean  that  he  would  let  anybody  deceive 
themselves  ? " 

"  I'm  afraid  he  would — if  he  thought  it  would  come 
right.  It  used  to  be  a  terrible  trial  to  me ;  and  it  is 
yet,  at  times  when  I  don't  remember  that  he  means 
nothing  but  good  and  kindness  by  it.  Only  the  other 
day  in  Ansbach — how  long  ago  it  seems ! — he  let  a 
poor  old  woman  give  him  her  son's  address  in  Jersey 
City,  and  allowed  her  to  believe  he  would  look  him 
up  when  we  got  back  and  tell  him  we  had  seen  her. 
I  don't  believe,  unless  I  keep  right  round  after  him, 
as  we  say  in  New  England,  that  he'll  ever  go  near  the 


THEIR   SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  581 

Agatha  looked  daunted,  but  she  said,  "  That  is  a 
very  different  thing." 

"  It  isn't  a  different  kind  of  thing.  And  it  shows 
what  men  are, — the  sweetest  and  best  of  them,  that 
is.  They  are  terribly  apt  to  be  easy-going." 

"  Then  you  think  I  was  all  wrong  ? "  the  girl  asked 
in  a  tremor. 

"  No,  indeed !  You  were  right,  because  you  really 
expected  perfection  of  him.  You  expected  the  ideal. 
And  that's  what  makes  all  the  trouble,  in  married 
life :  we  expect  too  much  of  each  other — we  each  ex 
pect  more  of  the  other  than  we  are  willing  to  give  or 
can  give.  If  I  had  to  begin  over  again,  I  should  not 
expect  anything  at  all,  and  then  I  should  be  sure  of 
being  radiantly  happy.  But  all  this  talking  and  all 
this  writing  about  love  seems  to  turn  our  brains;  we 
know  that  men  are  not  perfect,  even  at  our  craziest, 
because  women  are  not,  but  we  expect  perfection  of 
them ;  and  they  seem  to  expect  it  of  us,  poor  things ! 
If  we  could  keep  on  after  we  are  in  love  just  as  we 
were  before  we  were  in  love,  and  take  nice  things  as 
favors  and  surprises,  as  we  did  in  the  beginning  !  But 
we  get  more  and  more  greedy  and  exacting — " 

"  Do  you  think  I  was  too  exacting  in  wanting  him 
to  tell  me  everything  after  we  were  engaged  ? " 

"  No,  I  don't  say  that.  But  suppose  he  had  put  it 
off  till  you  were  married  ? "  Agatha  blushed  a  little, 
but  not  painfully.  "Would  it  have  been  so  bad? 
Then  you  might  have  thought  that  his  flirting  up  to 
the  last  moment  in  his  desperation  was  a  very  good 
joke.  You  would  have  understood  better  just  how  it 


582          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

was,  and  it  might  even  have  made  you  fonder  of  him. 
You  might  have  seen  that  he  had  flirted  with  some 
one  else  because  he  was  so  heart-broken  about  you." 

"  Then  you  believe  that  if  I  could  have  waited  till 
— till —  But  when  I  had  found  out,  don't  you  see  I 
couldn't  wait  ?  It  would  have  been  all  very  well  if  I 
hadn't  known  it  till  then.  But  as  I  did  know  it — 
Don't  you  see  ?  " 

"  Yes,  that  certainly  complicated  it,"  Mrs.  March 
admitted.  "  But  I  don't  think,  if  he'd  been  a  false 
nature,  he'd  have  owned  up  as  he  did.  You  see,  he 
didn't  try  to  deny  it ;  and  that's  a  great  point  gained." 

"  Yes,  that  is  true,"  said  Agatha,  with  conviction. 
"  I  saw  that  afterwards.  But  you  don't  think,  Mrs. 
March,  that  I  was  unjust  or — or  hasty  ? " 

"  No,  indeed  !  You  couldn't  have  done  differently 
under  the  circumstances.  You  may  be  sure  he  felt 
that — he  is  so  unselfish  and  generous — "  Agatha 
began  to  weep  into  her  handkerchief  again;  Mrs. 
March  caressed  her  hand.  "And  it  will  certainly 
come  right  if  you  feel  as  you  do." 

"  No,"  the  girl  protested.  "  He  can  never  forgive 
me  ;  it's  all  over ;  everything  is  over.  It  would  make 
very  little  difference  to  me,  what  happened  now — if 
the  steamer  broke  her  shaft,  or  anything.  But  if  I 
can  only  believe  I  wasn't  unjust — " 

Mrs.  March  assured  her  once  more  that  she  had  be 
haved  with  absolute  impartiality ;  and  she  proved  to 
her  by  a  process  of  reasoning  quite  irrefragable  that 
it  was  only  a  question  of  time,  with  which  place  had 
nothing  to  do,  when  she  and  Burnamy  should  come 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  583 

together  again,  and  all  should  be  made  right  between 
them.  The  fact  that  she  did  not  know  where  he  was, 
any  more  than  Mrs.  March  herself,  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  result ;  that  was  a  mere  detail,  which  would 
settle  itself.  She  clinched  her  argument  by  confess 
ing  that  her  own  engagement  had  been  broken  off, 
and  that  it  had  simply  renewed  itself.  All  you  had 
to  do  was  to  keep  willing  it,  and  waiting.  There  was 
something  very  mysterious  in  it. 

"And  how  long  was  it  till — "  Agatha  faltered. 

"  Well,  in  our  case  it  was  two  years." 

"  Oh  !  "  said  the  girl,  but  Mrs.  March  hastened  to 
reassure  her. 

"  But  our  case  was  very  peculiar.  I  could  see  af 
terwards  that  it  needn't  have  been  two  months,  if  I 
had  been  willing  to  acknowledge  at  once  that  I  was 
in  the  wrong.  I  waited  till  we  met." 

"  If  I  felt  that  I  was  in  the  wrong,  I  should  write," 
said  Agatha.  "  I  shouldn't  care  what  he  thought  of 
my  doing  it." 

"Yes,  the  great  thing  is  to  make  sure  that  you 
were  wrong." 

They  remained  talking  so  long,  that  March  and  the 
general  had  exhausted  all  the  topics  of  common  inter 
est,  and  had  even  gone  through  those  they  did  not 
care  for.  At  last  the  general  said,  "  I'm  afraid  my 
daughter  will  tire  Mrs.  March." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  think  she'll  tire  my  wife.  But  do 
you  want  her  ? " 

"  Well,  when  you're  going  down." 

"  I  think  I'll  take  a  turn  about  the  deck,  and  start 


584:  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

my  circulation,"  said  March,  and  he  did  so  before  he 
went  below. 

lie  found  his  wife  up  and  dressed,  and  waiting  pro 
visionally  on  the  sofa.  "  I  thought  I  might  as  well 
go  to  lunch,"  she  said,  and  then  she  told  him  about 
Agatha  and  Burnamy,  and  the  means  she  had  em 
ployed  to  comfort  and  encourage  the  girl.  "And 
now,  dearest,  I  want  you  to  find  out  where  Burnamy 
is,  and  give  him  a  hint.  You  will,  won't  you  ?  If 
you  could  have  seen  how  unhappy  she  was ! " 

"  I  don't  think  I  should  have  cared,  and  I'm  cer 
tainly  not  going  to  meddle.  I  think  Burnamy  has 
got  no  more  than  he  deserved,  and  that  he's  well  rid 
of  her.  I  can't  imagine  a  broken  engagement  that 
would  more  completely  meet  my  approval.  As  the 
case  stands,  they  have  my  blessing." 

"Don't  say  that,  dearest!  You  know  you  don't 
mean  it." 

"I  do ;  and  I  advise  you  to  keep  your  hands  off. 
You've  done  all  and  more  than  you  ought  to  propitiate 
Miss  Triscoe.  You've  offered  yourself  up,  and  you've 
offered  me  up — " 

"  No,  no,  Basil !  I  merely  used  you  as  an  illustra 
tion  of  what  men  were — the  best  of  them." 

"And  I  can't  observe,"  he  continued,  "that  any 
one  else  has  been  considered  in  the  matter.  Is  Miss 
Triscoe  the  sole  sufferer  by  Burnamy's  flirtation  ? 
What  is  the  matter  with  a  little  compassion  for  the 
pivotal  girl  ?  " 

"  Now,  you  know  you're  not  serious,"  said  his  wife ; 
and  though  he  would  not  admit  this,  he  could  not  be 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  585 

seriously  sorry  for  the  new  interest  which  she  took  in 
the  affair.  There  was  no  longer  any  question  of 
changing  their  state-room.  Under  the  tonic  influence 
of  the  excitement  she  did  not  go  back  to  her  berth 
after  lunch,  and  she  was  up  later  after  dinner  than  he 
could  have  advised.  She  was  absorbed  in  Agatha, 
but  in  her  liberation  from  her  hypochondria,  she  be 
gan  also  to  make  a  comparative  study  of  the  American 
swells,  in  the  light  of  her  late  experience  with  the 
German  highhotes.  It  is  true  that  none  of  the  swells 
gave  her  the  opportunity  of  examining  them  at  close 
range,  as  the  highhotes  had  done.  They  kept  to  their 
state-rooms  mostly,  where,  after  he  thought  she  could 
bear  it,  March  told  her  how  near  he  had  come  to  mak 
ing  her  their  equal  by  an  outlay  of  six  hundred  dol 
lars.  She  now  shuddered  at  the  thought;  but  she 
contended  that  in  their  magnificent  exclusiveness  they 
could  give  points  to  European  princes ;  and  that  this 
showed  again  how  when  Americans  did  try  to  do  a 
thing,  they  beat  the  world.  Agatha  Triscoe  knew 
who  they  were,  but  she  did  not  know  thefti ;  they  be 
longed  to  another  kind  of  set ;  she  spoke  of  them  as 
"  rich  people,"  and  she  seemed  content  to  keep  away 
from  them  with  Mrs.  March  and  with  the  shy,  silent 
old  wife  of  Major  Eltwin,  to  whom  March  sometimes 
found  her  talking. 

He  never  found  her  father  talking  with  Major  Elt 
win.  General  Triscoe  had  his  own  friends  in  the 
smoking-room,  where  he  held  forth  in  a  certain  corner 
on  the  chances  of  the  approaching  election  in  New 
York,  and  mocked  their  incredulity  when  he  prophe- 


586  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

sied  the  success  of  Tammany  and*the  return  of  the 
King.  March  himself  much  preferred  Major  Eltwin 
to  the  general  and  his  friends ;  he  lived  back  in  the 
talk  of  the  Ohioan  into  his  own  younger  years  in  In 
diana,  and  he  was  amused  and  touched  to  find  how 
much  the  mid- Western  life  seemed  still  the  same  as 
he  had  known.  The  conditions  had  changed,  but  not 
so  much  as  they  had  changed  in  the  East  and  the 
farther  West.  The  picture  that  the  major  drew  of 
them  in  his  own  region  was  alluring;  it  made  March 
homesick ;  though  he  knew  that  he  should  never  go 
back  to  his  native  section.  There  was  the  comfort  of 
kind  in  the  major;  and  he  had  a  vein  of  philosophy, 
spare  but  sweet,  which  March  liked ;  he  liked  also  the 
meekness  which  had  come  through  sorrow  upon  a 
spirit  which  had  once  been  proud. 

They  had  both  the  elderly  man's  habit  of  early  ris 
ing,  and  they  usually  found  themselves  together  wait 
ing  impatiently  for  the  cup  of  coffee,  ingenuously 
bad,  which  they  served  on  the  Cupania  not  earlier 
than  half  past  six,  in  strict  observance  of  a  rule  of  the 
line  discouraging  to  people  of  their  habits.  March 
admired  the  vileness  of  the  decoction,  which  he  said 
could  not  be  got  anywhere  out  of  the  British  Empire, 
and  he  asked  Eltwin  the  first  morning  if  he  had  not 
iced  how  instantly  on  the  Channel  boat  they  had 
dropped  to  it  and  to  the  sour,  heavy,  sodden  British 
bread,  from  the  spirited  and  airy  Continental  tradition 
of  coffee  and  rolls. 

The  major  confessed  that  he  was  no  great  hand  to 
notice  such  things,  and  he  said  he  supposed  that  if 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  587 

the  line  had  never  lost  a  passenger,  and  got  you  to 
New  York  in  six  days  it  had  a  right  to  feed  you  as  it 
pleased ;  he  surmised  that  if  they  could  get  their  air 
ing  outside  before  they  took  their  coffee,  it  would 
give  the  coffee  a  chance  to  taste  better ;  and  this  was 
what  they  afterwards  did.  They  met,  well  buttoned 
and  well  muffled  up,  on  the  promenade  when  it  was 
yet  so  early  that  they  were  not  at  once  sure  of  each 
other  in  the  twilight,  and  watched  the  morning  plan 
ets  pale  east  and  west  before  the  sun  rose.  Some 
times  there  were  no  paling  planets  and  no  rising  sun, 
and  a  black  sea,  ridged  with  white,  tossed  under  a  low 
dark  sky  with  dim  rifts. 

One  morning,  they  saw  the  sun  rise  with  a  serenity 
and  majesty  which  it  rarely  has  outside  of  the  theatre. 
The  dawn  began  over  that  sea  which  was  like  the 
rumpled  canvas  imitations  of  the  sea  on  the  stage, 
under  long  mauve  clouds  bathed  in  solemn  light. 
Above  these,  in  the  pale  tender  sky,  two  silver  stars 
hung,  and  the  steamer's  smoke  drifted  across  them 
like  a  thin  dusky  veil.  To  the  right  a  bank  of  dun 
cloud  began  to  burn  crimson,  and  to  burn  brighter  till 
it  was  like  a  low  hill-side  full  of  gorgeous  rugosities 
fleeced  with  a  dense  dwarfish  growth  of  autumnal 
shrubs.  The  whole  eastern  heaven  softened  and 
flushed  through  diaphanous  mists ;  the  west  remained 
a  livid  mystery.  The  eastern  masses  and  flakes  of 
cloud  began  to  kindle  keenly ;  but  the  stars  shone 
clearly,  and  then  one  star,  till  the  lawny  pink  hid  it. 
All  the  zenith  reddened,  but  still  the  sun  did  not  show 
except  in  the  color  of  the  brilliant  clouds.  At  last  the 


588  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

lurid  horizon  began  to  burn  like  a  flame-shot  smoke, 
and  a  fiercely  bright  disc  edge  pierced  its  level,  and 
swiftly  defined  itself  as  the  sun's  orb. 

Many  thoughts  went  through  March's  mind ;  some 
of  them  were  sad,  but  in  some  there  was  a  touch  of 
hopefulness.  It  might  have  been  that  beauty  which 
consoled  him  for  his  years  ;  somehow  he  felt  himself, 
if  no  longer  young,  a  part  of  the  young  immortal 
frame  of  things.  His  state  was  indefinable,  but  he 
longed  to  hint  at  it  to  his  companion. 

"  Yes,"  said  Eltwin,  with  a  long  deep  sigh.  "  I 
feel  as  if  I  could  walk  out  through  that  brightness 
and  find  her.  I  reckon  that  such  hopes  wouldn't  be 
allowed  to  lie  to  us;  that  so  many  ages  of  men 
couldn't  have  fooled  themselves  so.  I'm  glad  I've 
seen  this."  He  was  silent  and  they  both  remained 
watching  the  rising  sun  till  they  could  not  bear  its 
splendor.  "  Now,"  said  the  major,  "  it  must  be  time 
for  that  mud,  as  you  call  it."  Over  their  coffee  and 
crackers  at  the  end  of  the  table  which  they  had  to 
themselves,  he  resumed.  "  I  was  thinking  all  the 
time — we  seem  to  think  half  a  dozen  things  at  once, 
and  this  was  one  of  them — about  a  piece  of  business 
I've  got  to  settle  when  I  reach  home ;  and  perhaps 
you  can  advise  me  about  it;  you're  an  editor.  I've 
got  a  newspaper  on  my  hands ;  I  reckon  it  would  be 
a  pretty  good  thing,  if  it  had  a  chance  ;  but  I  don't 
know  what  to  do  with  it.  I  got  it  in  trade  with  a  fel 
low  who  has  to  go  West  for  his  lungs,  but  he's  stay 
ing  till  I  get  back.  What's  become  of  that  young 
chap — what's  his  name  ? — that  went  out  with  us  2 '' 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  589 

"  Bnrnamy  ?  "  prompted  March,  rather  breathlessly. 

"  Yes.  Couldn't  he  take  hold  of  it  ?  I  rather  liked 
him.  He's  smart,  isn't  he  ?  " 

"  Very,"  said  March.  "  But  I  don't  know  where 
he  is.  I  don't  know  that  he  would  go  into  the  coun 
try.  But  he  might,  if — " 

They  entered  provisionally  into  the  case,  and  for 
argument's  sake  supposed  that  Burnamy  would  take 
hold  of  the  major's  paper  if  he  could  be  got  at.  It 
really  looked  to  March  like  a  good  chance  for  him,  on 
Eltwin's  showing;  but  he  was  not  confident  of  Bur- 
namy's  turning  up  very  soon,  and  he  gave  the  major 
a  pretty  clear  notion  why,  by  entering  into  the  young 
fellow's  history  for  the  last  three  months. 

"  Isn't  it  the  very  irony  of  fate  ? "  he  said  to  his 
wife  when  he  found  her  in  their  room  with  a  cup  of 
the  same  mud  he  had  been  drinking,  and  reported  the 
facts  to  her. 

"  Irony  ? "  she  said,  with  all  the  excitement  he 
could  have  imagined  or  desired.  "  Nothing  of  the 
kind.  It's  a  leading,  if  ever  there  was  one.  It  will 
be  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  find  Burnamy. 
And  out  there  she  can  sit  on  her  steps ! " 

He  slowly  groped  his  way  to  her  meaning,  through 
the  hypothesis  of  Burnamy's  reconciliation  and  mar 
riage  with  Agatha  Triscoe,  and  their  settlement  in 
Major  Eltwin's  town  under  social  conditions  that  im 
plied  a  habit  of  spending  the  summer  evenings  on 
their  front  porch.  While  he  was  doing  this  she 
showered  him  with  questions  and  conjectures  and  re 
quisitions  in  which  nothing  but  the  impossibility  of 


590          THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

going  ashore  saved  him  from  the  instant  devotion  of 
all  his  energies  to  a  world- wide  inquiry  into  Burna- 
my's  whereabouts. 

The  next  morning  he  was  up  before  Major  Eltwin 
got  out,  and  found  the  second-cabin  passengers  free 
of  the  first-cabin  promenade  at  an  hour  when  their 
superiors  were  not  using  it.  As  he  watched  these 
inferiors,  decent-looking,  well-clad  men  and  women, 
enjoying  their  privilege  with  a  furtive  air,  and  with 
stolen  glances  at  him,  he  asked  himself  in  what  sort 
he  was  their  superior,  till  the  inquiry  grew  painful. 
Then  he  rose  from  his  chair,  and  made  his  way  to  the 
place  where  the  material  barrier  between  them  was 
lifted,  and  interested  himself  in  a  few  of  them  who 
seemed  too  proud  to  avail  themselves  of  his  society 
on  the  terms  made.  A  figure  seized  his  attention 
with  a  sudden  fascination  of  conjecture  and  rejection : 
the  figure  of  a  tall  young  man  who  came  out  on  the 
promenade  and  without  looking  round,  walked  swiftly 
away  to  the  bow  of  the  ship,  and  stood  there  looking 
down  at  the  water  in  an  attitude  which  was  bewilder- 
ingly  familiar.  His  movement,  his  posture,  his  dress, 
even,  was  that  of  Burnamy,  and  March,  after  a  first 
flush  of  pleasure,  felt  a  sickening  repulsion  in  the  no 
tion  of  his  presence.  It  would  have  been  such  a  cheap 
performance  on  the  part  of  life,  which  has  all  sorts  of 
chances  at  command,  and  need  not  descend  to  the 
poor  tricks  of  second-rate  fiction ;  and  he  accused  Bur 
namy  of  a  complicity  in  the  bad  taste  of  the  affair, 
though  he  realized,  when  he  reflected,  that  if  it  were 
really  Burnamy  he  must  have  sailed  in  as  much  un- 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  591 

consciousness  of  the  Triscoes  as  he  himself  had  done. 
He  had  probably  got  out  of  money  and  had  hurried 
home  while  he  had  still  enough  to  pay  the  second- 
cabin  fare  on  the  first  boat  back.  Clearly  he  was  not 
to  blame,  but  life  was  to  blame  for  such  a  shabby  de 
vice  ;  and  March  felt  this  so  keenly  that  he  wished  to 
turn  from  the  situation,  and  have  nothing  to  do  with 
it.  He  kept  moving  toward  him,  drawn  by  the  fatal 
attraction,  and  at  a  few  paces'  distance  the  young  man 
whirled  about  and  showed  him  the  face  of  a  stranger. 

March  made  some  witless  remark  on  the  rapid 
course  of  the  ship  as  it  cut  its  way  through  the  water 
of  the  bow ;  the  stranger  answered  with  a  strong  Lan 
cashire  accent;  and  in  the  talk  which  followed,  he 
said  he  was  going  out  to  see  the  cotton-mills  at  Fall 
River  and  New  Bedford,  and  he  seemed  hopeful  of 
some  advice  or  information  from  March ;  then  he  said 
he  must  go  and  try  to  get  his  Missus  out;  March  un 
derstood  him  to  mean  his  wife,  and  he  hurried  down 
to  his  own,  to  whom  he  related  his  hair-breadth  escape 
from  Burnamy. 

"  I  don't'  call  it  an  escape  at  all ! "  she  declared. 
"  I  call  it  the  greatest  possible  misfortune.  If  it  had 
been  Burnamy  we  could  have  brought  them  together 
at  once,  just  when  she  has  seen  so  clearly  that  she  was 
in  the  wrong,  and  is  feeling  all  broken  up.  There 
wouldn't  have  been  any  difficulty  about  his  being  in 
the  second-cabin.  We  could  have  contrived  to  have 
them  meet  somehow.  If  the  worst  came  to  the  worst 
you  could  have  lent  him  money  to  pay  the  difference, 
and  got  him  into  the  first-cabin." 


592  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

"  I  could  have  taken  that  six-hundred-dollar  room 
for  him,"  said  March,  "  and  then  he  could  have  eaten 
with  the  swells." 

She  answered  that  now  he  was  teasing ;  that  he  was 
fundamentally  incapable  of  taking  anything  seriously ; 
and  in  the  end  he  retired  before  the  stewardess  bring 
ing  her  first  coffee,  with  a  well-merited  feeling  that  if 
it  had  not  been  for  his  triviality  the  young  Lanca- 
shireman  would  really  have  been  Burnamy. 


LXXV. 

EXCEPT  for  the  first  day  and  night  out  from  Queens- 
town,  when  the  ship  rolled  and  pitched  with  straining 
and  squeaking  noises,  and  a  thumping  of  the  lifted 
screws,  there  was  no  rough  weather,  and  at  last  the 
ocean  was  livid  and  oily,  with  a  long  swell,  on  which 
she  swayed  with  no  perceptible  motion  save  from  her 
machinery. 

Most  of  the  seamanship  seemed  to  be  done  after 
dark,  or  in  those  early  hours  when  March  found  the 
stewards  cleaning  the  stairs,  and  the  sailors  scouring 
the  promenades.  He  made  little  acquaintance  with 
his  fellow-passengers.  One  morning  he  almost  spoke 
with  an  old  Quaker  lady  whom  he  joined  in  looking 
at  the  Niagara  flood  which  poured  from  the  churning 
screws ;  but  he  did  not  quite  get  the  words  out.  On 
the  contrary  he  talked  freely  with  an  American  who 
bred  horses  on  a  farm  near  Boulogne,  and  was  going 
home  to  the  Horse  Show ;  he  had  been  thirty-five 
years  out  of  the  country,  but  he  had  preserved  his 
Yankee  accent  in  all  its  purity,  and  was  the  most  typ 
ical-looking  American  on  board.  Now  and  then  March 
walked  up  and  down  with  a  blond  Mexican  whom  he 


594  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

found  of  the  usual  well-ordered  Latin  intelligence,  but 
rather  flavorless ;  at  times  he  sat  beside  a  nice  Jew, 
who  talked  agreeably,  but  only  about  business  ;  and 
he  philosophized  the  race  as  so  tiresome  often  because 
it  seemed  so  often  without  philosophy.  He  made 
desperate  attempts  at  times  to  interest  himself  in  the 
pool-selling  in  the  smoking-room  where  the  betting 
on  the  ship's  wonderful  run  was  continual. 

He  thought  that  people  talked  less  and  less  as  they 
drew  nearer  home ;  but  on  the  last  day  out  there  was 
a  sudden  expansion,  and  some  whom  he  had  not 
spoken  with  voluntarily  addressed  him.  The  sweet, 
soft  air  was  like  midsummer ;  the  water  rippled  gen 
tly,  without  a  swell,  blue  under  the  clear  sky,  and  the 
ship  left  a  wide  track  that  was  silver  in  the  sun. 
There  were  more  sail ;  the  first  and  second  class  bag 
gage  was  got  up  and  piled  along  the  steerage  deck. 

Some  people  dressed  a  little  more  than  usual  for 
the  last  dinner  which  was  earlier  than  usual,  so  as  to 
be  out  of  the  way  against  the  arrival  which  had  been 
variously  predicted  at  from  five  to  seven-thirty.  An 
indescribable  nervousness  culminated  with  the  appear 
ance  of  the  customs  officers  on  board,  who  spread 
their  papers  on  cleared  spaces  of  the  dining-tables, 
and  summoned  the  passengers  to  declare  that  they  had 
nothing  to  declare,  as  a  preliminary  to  being  searched 
like  thieves  at  the  dock. 

This  ceremony  proceeded  while  the  Cupania  made 
her  way  up  the  Narrows,  and  into  the  North  River, 
where  the  flare  of  lights  from  the  crazy  steeps  and 
cliffs  of  architecture  on  the  New  York  shore  seemed 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  595 

a  persistence  of  the  last  Fourth  of  July  pyrotechnics. 
March  blushed  for  the  grotesque  splendor  of  the  spec 
tacle,  and  was  confounded  to  find  some  Englishmen 
admiring  it,  till  he  remembered  that  aesthetics  were 
not  the  strong  point  of  our  race.  His  wife  sat  hand 
in  hand  with  Miss  Triscoe,  and  from  time  to  time 
made  him  count  the  pieces  of  small  baggage  in  the 
keeping  of  their  steward ;  while  General  Triscoe  held 
aloof  in  a  sarcastic  calm. 

The  steamer  groped  into  her  dock  ;  the  gangways 
were  lifted  to  her  side ;  the  passengers  fumbled  and 
stumbled  down  their  incline,  and  at  the  bottom  the 
Marches  found  themselves  respectively  in  the  arms  of 
their  son  and  daughter.  They  all  began  talking  at 
once,  and  ignoring  and  trying  to  remember  the  Tris- 
coes  to  whom  the  young  Marches  were  presented. 
Bella  did  her  best  to  be  polite  to  Agatha,  and  Tom 
offered  to  get  an  inspector  for  the  general  at  the  same 
time  as  for  his  father.  Then  March  remorsefully  re 
membered  the  Eltwins,  and  looked  about  for  them,  so 
that  his  son  might  get  them  an  inspector  too.  He 
found  the  major  already  in  the  hands  of  an  inspector, 
who  was  passing  all  his  pieces  after  carelessly  looking 
into  one :  the  official  who  received  the  declarations  on 
board  had  noted  a  Grand  Army  button  like  his  own 
in  the  major's  lapel,  and  had  marked  his  fellow-veter 
an's  paper  with  the  mystic  sign  which  procures  for 
the  bearer  the  honor  of  being  promptly  treated  as  a 
smuggler,  while  the  less  favored  have  to  wait  longer 
for  this  indignity  at  the  hands  of  their  government. 
When  March's  own  inspector  came  he  was  as  civil 


596  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

and  lenient  as  our  hateful  law  allows ;  when  he  had 
finished  March  tried  to  put  a  bank-note  in  his  hand, 
and  was  brought  to  a  just  shame  by  his  refusal  of  it. 
The  bed-room  steward  keeping  guard  over  the  bag 
gage  helped  put  it  together  after  the  search,  and  pro 
tested  that  March  had  feed  him  so  handsomely  that 
he  would  stay  there  with  it  as  long  as  they  wished. 
This  partly  restored  March's  self-respect,  and  he  could 
share  in  General  Triscoe's  indignation  with  the  Treas 
ury  ruling  which  obliged  him  to  pay  duty  on  his  own 
purchases  in  excess  of  the  hundred-dollar  limit,  though 
his  daughter  had  brought  nothing,  and  they  jointly 
came  far  within  the  limit  for  two. 

He  found  that  the  Triscocs  were  going  to  a  quiet 
old  hotel  on  the  way  to  Stuyvesant  Square,  quite  in 
his  own  neighborhood,  and  he  quickly  arranged  for 
all  the  ladies  and  the  general  to  drive  together  while 
he  was  to  follow  with  his  son  on  foot  and  by  car. 
They  got  away  from  the  scene  of  the  customs'  havoc 
while  the  steamer  shed,  with  its  vast  darkness  dimly 
lit  by  its  many  lamps,  still  showed  like  a  battle-field 
where  the  inspectors  groped  among  the  scattered  bag 
gage  like  details  from  the  victorious  army  searching 
for  the  wounded.  His  son  clapped  him  on  the  shoulder 
when  he  suggested  this  notion,  and  said  he  was  the 
same  old  father ;  and  they  got  home  as  gayly  together 
as  the  dispiriting  influences  of  the  New  York  ugliness 
would  permit.  It  was  still  in  those  good  and  decent 
times,  now  so  remote,  when  the  city  got  something  for 
the  money  paid  out  to  keep  its  streets  clean,  and  those 
they  passed  through  were  not  foul  but  merely  mean. 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  597 

The  ignoble  effect  culminated  when  they  came  into 
Broadway,  and  found  its  sidewalks,  at  an  hour  when 
those  of  any  European  metropolis  would  have  been 
brilliant  with  life,  as  unpeopled  as  those  of  a  minor 
country  town,  while  long  processions  of  cable-cars 
carted  heaps  of  men  and  women  up  and  down  the  thor 
oughfare  amidst  the  deformities  of  the  architecture. 

The  next  morning  the  March  family  breakfasted 
late  after  an  evening  prolonged  beyond  midnight  in 
spite  of  half -hourly  agreements  that  now  they  must 
really  all  go  to  bed.  The  children  had  both  to  recog 
nize  again  and  again  how  well  their  parents  were  look 
ing  ;  Tom  had  to  tell  his  father  about  the  condition  of 
Every  Oilier  Week  ;  Bella  had  to  explain  to  her  moth 
er  how  sorry  her  husband  was  that  he  could  not  come 
on  to  meet  them  with  her,  but  was  coming  a  week 
later  to  take  her  home,  and  then  she  would  know  the 
reason  why  they  could  not  all  go  back  to  Chicago  with 
him :  it  was  just  the  place  for  her  father  to  live,  for 
everybody  to  live.  At  breakfast  she  renewed  the  rea 
soning  with  which  she  had  maintained  her  position 
the  night  before ;  the  travellers  entered  into  a  full  ex 
pression  of  their  joy  at  being  home  again ;  March 
asked  what  had  become  of  that  stray  parrot  which  they 
had  left  in  the  tree-top  the  morning  they  started ;  and 
Mrs.  March  declared  that  this  was  the  last  Silver 
Wedding  Journey  she  ever  wished  to  take,  and  tried 
to  convince  them  all  that  she  had  been  on  the  verge 
of  nervous  collapse  when  she  reached  the  ship.  They 
sat  at  table  till  she  discovered  that  it  was  very  nearly 
eleven  o'clock,  and  said  it  was  disgraceful. 


598  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

Before  they  rose,  there  was  a  ring  at  the  door,  and 
a  card  was  brought  in  to  Tom.  He  glanced  at  it,  and 
said  to  his  father,  "Oh,  yes !  This  man  has  been 
haunting  the  office  for  the  last  three  days.  He's  got 
to  leave  to-day,  and  as  it  seemed  to  be  rather  a  case 
of  life  and  death  with  him,  I  said  he'd  probably  find 
you  here  this  morning.  But  if  you  don't  want  to  see 
him,  I  can  put  him  off  till  afternoon,  I  suppose." 

He  tossed  the  card  to  his  father,  who  looked  at  it 
quietly,  and  then  gave  it  to  his  wife.  "  Perhaps  I'd 
as  well  see  him  ? " 

11 -See  him!"  she  returned  in  accents  in  which  all 
the  intensity  of  her  soul  was  centred.  By  an  effort 
of  self-control  which  no  words  can  convey  a  just  sense 
of  she  remained  with  her  children,  while  her  husband 
with  a  laugh  more  teasing  than  can  be  imagined  went 
into  the  drawing-room  to  meet  Burnamy. 

The  poor  fellow  was  in  an  effect  of  belated  summer 
as  to  clothes,  and  he  looked  not  merely  haggard  but 
shabby.  He  made  an  effort  for  dignity  as  well  as 
gayety,  however,  in  stating  himself  to  March,  with 
many  apologies  for  his  persistency.  But,  he  said,  he 
was  on  his  way  West,  and  he  was  anxious  to  know 
whether  there  was  any  chance  of  his  Kasper  Hauser 
paper  being  taken  if  he  finished  it  up.  March  would 
have  been  a  far  harder-hearted  editor  than  he  was,  if 
he  could  have  discouraged  the  suppliant  before  him. 
He  said  he  would  take  the  Kasper  Hauser  paper  and 
add  a  band  of  music  to  the  usual  rate  of  ten  dollars  a 
thousand  words.  Then  Burnamy 's  dignity  gave  way, 
if  not  his  gayety  ;  he  began  to  laugh,  and  suddenly  he 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING   JOURNEY.  599 

broke  down  and  confessed  that  he  had  come  home  in 
the  steerage ;  and  was  at  his  last  cent,  beyond  his  fare 
to  Chicago.  His  straw  hat  looked  like  a  withered 
leaf  in  the  light  of  his  sad  facts ;  his  thin  overcoat 
affected  March's  imagination  as  something  like  the 
diaphanous  cast  shell  of  a  locust,  hopelessly  resumed 
for  comfort  at  the  approach  of  autumn.  He  made 
Burnamy  sit  down,  after  he  had  once  risen,  and  he 
told  him  of  Major  Eltwin's  wish  to  see  him  ;  and  he 
promised  to  go  round  with  him  to  the  major's  hotel 
before  the  Eltwins  left  town  that  afternoon. 

While  he  prolonged  the  interview  in  this  way,  Mrs. 
March  was  kept  from  breaking  in  upon  them  only  by 
the  psychical  experiment  which  she  was  making  with 
the  help  and  sympathy  of  her  daughter  at  the  window 
of  the  dining-room  which  looked  up  Sixteenth  Street. 
At  the  first  hint  she  gave  of  the  emotional  situation 
which  Burnamy  was  a  main  part  of,  her  son,  with  the 
brutal  contempt  of  young-  men  for  other  young  men's 
love  affairs,  said  he  must  go  to  the  office ;  he  bade  his 
mother  tell  his  father  there  was  no  need  of  his  coming 
down  that  day,  and  he  left  the  two  women  together. 
This  gave  the  mother  a  chance  to  develop  the  whole 
fact  to  the  daughter  with  telegrammic  rapidity  and 
brevity,  and  then  to  enrich  the  first  outline  with  in 
numerable  details,  while  they  both  remained  at  the 
window,  and  Mrs.  March  said  at  two-minutely  inter 
vals,  with  no  sense  of  iteration  for  either  of  them,  "  I 
told  her  to  come  in  the  morning,  if  she  felt  like  it, 
and  I  know  she  will.  But  if  she  doesn't,  I  shall  say 
there  is  nothing  in  fate,  or  Providence  either.  At  any 


600  THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY. 

rate  I'm  going  to  stay  here  and  keep  longing  for  her, 
and  we'll  see  whether  there's  anything  in  that  silly 
theory  of  your  father's.  I  don't  believe  there  is,"  she 
said,  to  be  on  the  safe  side. 

Even  when  she  saw  Agatha  Triscoe  enter  the  park 
gate  on  Rutherford  Place,  she  saved  herself  from  dis 
appointment  by  declaring  that  she  was  not  coming 
across  to  their  house.  As  the  girl  persisted  in  com 
ing  and  coming,  and  at  last  came  so  near  that  she 
caught  sight  of  Mrs.  March  at  the  window  and  nodded, 
the  mother  turned  ungratefully  upon  her  daughter, 
and  drove  her  away  to  her  own  room,  so  that  no  soci 
ety  detail  should  hinder  the  divine  chance.  She  went 
to  the  door  herself  when  Agatha  rang,  and  then  she 
was  going  to  open  the  way  into  the  parlor  where 
March  was  still  closeted  with  Burnamy,  and  pretend 
that  she  had  not  known  they  were  there.  But  a  so 
berer  second  thought  than  this  prevailed,  and  she  told 
the  girl  who  it  was  that  was  within  and  explained  the 
accident  of  his  presence.  "  I  think,"  she  said  nobly, 
"  that  you  ought  to  have  the  chance  of  going  away  if 
you  don't  wish  to  meet  him." 

The  girl,  with  that  heroic  precipitation  which  Mrs. 
March  had  noted  in  her  from  the  first  with  regard  to 
what  she  wanted  to  do,  when  Burnamy  was  in  ques 
tion,  answered,  "  But  I  do  wish  to  meet  him,  Mrs. 
March." 

While  they  stood  looking  at  each  other,  March 
came  out  to  ask  his  wife  if  she  would  see  Burnamy, 
and  she  permitted  herself  so  much  stratagem  as  to 
substitute  Agatha,  after  catching  her  husband  aside 


THEIR    SILVER    WEDDING    JOURNEY.  601 

and  subduing  his  proposed  greeting  of  the  girl  to  a 
hasty  handshake. 

Half  an  hour  later  she  thought  it  time  to  join  the 
young  peeple,  urged  largely  by  the  frantic  interest  of 
her  daughter.  But  she  returned  from  the  half-  open 
door  without  entering.  "  I  couldn't  bring  myself  to 
break  in  on  the  poor  things.  They  are  standing  at 
the  window  together  looking  over  at  St.  George's." 

Bella  silently  clasped  her  hands.  March  gave  a 
cynical  laugh,  and  said,  "  Well  we  are  in  for  it,  my 
dear."  Then  he  added,  "  I  hope  they'll  take  us  with 
them  on  their  Silver  Wedding  Journey." 


• 

Hf 

WTY  } 


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